Highlights from the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Global Summit

Last week I immersed myself into the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Global Summit.

I say "immersed" though I was only able to watch 15% of the 48 insightful, in-depth speaker sessions ranging from traditional and clinical approaches, integration, diversity, you name it.

Here are some of my highlights from the Summit:

1. The opening talk by Deepak Chopra

I first came across Deepak Chopra MD (official) via a close friend who recommended a 21-day meditation experience with Alicia Keys on "Activating the Divine Feminine" (which is still available via the Chopra mobile app if anyone's interested).

The opening session with Deepak Chopra MD (official) was filled with goodness, memorable quotes and fascinating perspectives on religion and spirituality.

A few highlights:

• 95% of chronic illness is connected to epigenetics and psychedelics will play a role in preventing this - i.e. 'the promise'.

"What’s out there is a projection of what’s in here; we are the bit of the it."

• What stood out the most for me was how Deepak compared 'spirituality' with 'being religious', concluding they are the same;
• The word "religion" comes from 'religio' - meaning "going back to self", and holds the same 3 components as being spiritual:

1. Finding your true self
2. Emergence of platonic values (e.g. love, compassion, joy, truth) and
3. The loss of the fear of death

This really stuck with me because I too, always denied of being 'religious' - yet have the desire to becoming more spiritual.

2. Daniel Siegel’s energy and word plays

Daniel Siegel's enthusiasm during the session was contagious as he explained psychedelic therapies and medicine through the lens of interpersonal neurobiology (and since I’ve been doing a course on neurobiology I found this extra captivating).

• Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB), as Daniel puts it "informs all forms of therapy, building bridges across multiple sciences and methods."
• Our brain grows continuously throughout our lives meaning that the implications for healing are unending.
• PAT (short for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy) is enabling us to open up - by dropping of the solo self and tapping into the plain of possibility, accessing it and living it.

“Modern culture has all been a lie - it’s about presence, not performance.”

This made me reflect a lot because as I've been attempting to live a more conscious, present life (thanks to having left London and spending more time on personal development), I still get carried away with wanting to achieve X number of goals by the end of this year or judging my professional performance by certain metrics. It's definitely a work in progress.

3. Session with Dr. Ben Sessa (without the drums this time)*

I connected with Dr. Ben Sessa soon after I watched “How To Change Your Mind” Netflix series (I never managed to finish the book in 2019), and have been following his work ever since. And it was thanks to Ben that I found out about this Summit!

Awakn Life Sciences where Ben leads psychedelic medicine, is truly impressive in the sense that this biotech company does pretty much everything as Ben describes it himself.

What I’ve learned:

• The difference between a simple vs. a complex PTSD - one time event vs. reoccurring (complex is worse and a lot more challenging to heal from).
• When looking at the Attachment-Based Therapy - children who didn’t get enough love, care, attention, trust, safety during their development - are more vulnerable.
• There is a 60% treatment resistance for PTSD because people can’t get pass that barrier to talk about childhood traumas - this is when the psychedelics come in very handy.

Dr. Ben predicts that in 10-15 years from now we will use all types of drugs for everything, and we will see more mixed protocols - creative and broader use of psychedelics.

*In case you missed this fab podcast from Psychedelic Medicine.

4. Gabor Maté’s no bs observations

I am yet to familiarise myself with more of Gabor Maté's work but I really enjoyed his raw and authentic reflections about his experiences with Ayahuasca, and love the fact that he works with his own son Daniel, by e.g. co-writing the latest book The Myth of Normal.

A couple of powerful points:

• “A lot of children are wounded not because bad things happened to them but because their needs were not met” - and impact of that wound shows up in our emotional and physical health as adults.
• Happy childhood myth refers to us having positive memories of our childhood as adults, yet we don't realise that there is also a lot of unresolved pain or trauma (and we can’t compare it to any other scenario).

"Even if you're not a victim - it doesn’t mean you haven’t suffered."

• ACS (short for Adolescent Counselling Services) don’t look at things that didn’t happen but should have happened.
• The Ayahuasca chants 'icaros' are tailored by shamans depending on the energies of people taking the medicine, they can either make you vomit or feel relaxed - every experience is unique.

A lot of what Gabor Maté talked about resonated, especially as I've been doing talk therapy for the last year and a half and becoming more aware of that anything I lacked in my childhood (e.g. attention or emotional love from dad) - I was and (to some degree) still am trying to make up for it in my adult life.

5. Session with Andrea Pennington & Elizabeth Call

A very interesting conversation led by Dr. 1Drea Pennington Wasio with Elizabeth Call around the differences between using ketamine and MDMA during a PAT session and embracing the future of psychedelic-assisted therapy.

What I’ve learned:

• Multiplicity for a long time was pathologized but this is a normal phenomenal and response to trauma, i.e. “wearing of the different hats a day" - and we should not treat these as separate but welcome them and make a room for their expression.
• The research of the next 20 years will predict which psychedelic medicine will dominate (e.g. MDMA vs. ketamine); “we’re just at the beginning of discovering this.”
• Longer psychedelic-assisted therapy experiences have a much larger impact on the body, e.g. MDMA (8 hours) vs. ketamine (1.5-2 hours), or psilocybin (5 hours) vs. LSD (12 hours).
• Low dosage of ketamine is similar to MDMA whereas higher dosage of ketamine will have a more transportive experience which doesn't happen with MDMA.
• However, what was surprising to learn from Phase II trials was that low dosages of MDMA (below 75mg) - are very anxiety producing and don’t yield the benefits.

“PAT jiggles up some of the psychotherapeutic restrictions - possibilities open up beyond linear models of exploration - it’s a different version of therapy.”

6. Inspiration from Ifetayo Harvey

Last but not least it was really encouraging to hear Ifetayo Harvey talk about diversity and how she realised that psychedelics had a race problem when she started off at MAPS in 2015 and was the only black employee (things have changed since).

She also noticed that black people weren't being included in the studies or given the same opportunities for treatments. Ever since Ifetayo Harvey has been raising awareness by founding POC Psychedelic Collective, sharing her personal story and speaking on the panels.

"We experience racial trauma so it's vital we have representation in this space."

Initially I started composing this as a Linkedin post and very soon realised that that won't work. There was too much useful content to share and all of it just from a handful of talks I managed to consume during the 7 days.

This Summit was truly a great way to learn more from the leaders and change makers in this space which I only see growing bigger and bigger.

P.S. If anyone interested - you can access all the sessions with a lifetime access here.