Exploring Integrative Mental Health and Psychedelics: In Conversation with Dr Keith Kurlander

[00:00:03] Hi, I'm Dr Russell Thackeray and welcome to Resilience Unravelled, a podcast with new ideas, new thoughts and new thinking about resilience. Guests with remarkable stories, products and services that can really power up your own mindset and resilience. You can also go to our site for more information, to ask questions or to access some of our resources at www.resilienceunravelled.com. Let's get started!

[00:00:32] Hi and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled. And it's my delight to see in front of me a guest who's sitting in a beautiful garden room with vines hanging from the ceiling. And it looks like a golf club in the corner, but who knows what it might be. But this is an atmosphere of serenity and calmness. And in that environment is my guest, Keith Kurlander.

[00:00:58] So, Keith, it's a joy to meet you. Are you as serene and calm as your background? I'm never as serene and calm as that background. That's why I chose that background. Very good. Where in the world are you, Keith? I'm in Boulder, Colorado. So it's snowing right now outside. But Boulder's, if you don't know Boulder, Colorado, it's right on the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. So it's a small city that is sitting at the edge of the mountains.

[00:01:28] Fantastic. Having real weather. That's just like a, it's just a joy, isn't it? Well, thanks for joining me first off. And maybe you could just start by just giving us a pen portrait of who you are as a person and your background. Great. That sounds great. I've been in my career now for a little under 30 years, 25, 27 years. I was trained as a psychotherapist. I did that for a good 15 to 18 years.

[00:01:55] And then I really shifted my focus to this organization that I co-founded, the Integrative Psychiatry Institute. And that shift was really coming from a desire to help move the needle in terms of how we do mental health care. And too many people are suffering and in treatment resistance and not getting better. So I wanted to go more into the educational space. And so now we train thousands of people a year in integrative models of mental health care.

[00:02:26] So you give me three things immediately to go out of this. That's very interesting. So you say you want to move the needle and people are not getting better. It's been a source of frustration, I think, for a lot of people to think that the more we talk about mental health and the more services we have, and the more practitioners we have, the more the issues seem to get more and more extreme. And there seem to be fewer and fewer results. It seems to me that the industry or the profession of being psychotherapists is a sort of self-sustaining one.

[00:02:55] I think you're right that our profession is never going away. A lot of professions are going away in the next 10 years. But our profession ultimately isn't going away because there's so many people that struggle. And it seems to be, if you look at data, at least in the last 15 years, like when I look at the data of, at least in the United States, I'll talk about every country. There's so many countries. But there's more and more people that are struggling with mental health issues.

[00:03:21] And now I have one in four people on psychiatric medications in the United States. It's a high number, one in four. Yeah, we're here to stay for sure. And we need better tools. And how are you defining mental health? Are you including things like, are you looking at the DSM? Are you including things like neuro, neurodiversity in that place? Or do you treat that as a separate category?

[00:03:44] I think what I was just referring to, I'm talking more about the mental health studies out of the CDC and things, the things that they do every few years where they look how people are doing and that kind of stuff. So not so much the wider range of things that we can look at in terms of how people are either different or struggle. But there's that too, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[00:04:08] I want to get into this integrative idea because it struck me that you're saying our profession is not going away, but having spent some time playing with ChatGPT recently and giving it some counselling, non-directive counselling props, it is a very good non-directive counselling partner and much cheaper.

[00:04:26] And so I think the challenge for our profession is how do we build new ideas, new thoughts, new themes, new tools and practices on top of sort of basics that all of us have and which we know have always worked. But we're going to have to stay relevant, aren't we? So what is this idea of an integrative that you were talking about earlier? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:46] First off, staying relevant is going to be hard with ChatGVT and AI and all of that, especially as younger generations will choose to do the thing they're used to, which will be to use basically machine learning and robots to solve their problems. So that's an issue, but that's a, we could go there too.

[00:05:06] But in terms of integrative, so we, and it's different in every country, but although the American psychiatric model influenced many countries, but they're really the integrative approach that we're teaching is just really about looking at an expanded spectrum of root causes.

[00:05:25] A lot of the approach we'll say in most, many countries at this point is a patient goes to a doctor, they tell them their symptoms that fit into the DSM or don't, which they usually do. And they're looking to prescribe a drug from a trial that sort of matched those symptoms, right? And we're trying to reduce the symptoms. And we also see that it works okay and it doesn't work that often.

[00:05:52] So we are really talking about what are the, all the things that you need to think about? What's causing those symptoms? And that's really, and then the integrative approach is being able to assess those symptoms and then being able to treat those symptoms, right? So that, that would be the integrative approach, which is that we're spanning disciplines in some way in an integrative approach. The scope has to be a little wider because you can't send someone to 300 people for this little nuance and this nuance.

[00:06:21] So we're training a little bit more of an expanded scope of assessment and treatment. And sometimes you have to refer out, obviously. Yes. There seems to have been, and I don't know if this is true or not, this just seems to be looking at data to me. There seems to be a general, not a general, a very large uptake in this idea of mental health situations, conditions, problems, issues, whatever it might be. Some of it may be the way that we've been measuring and counting that.

[00:06:50] But can you put your finger on why these issues seem to be more prevalent in the world than before? This is the most important question. Why might we be getting sicker? This is a great question. I guess I'll answer it. I'm curious to see what you think. But first of all, I think a number of things happened in the last 15 years that caused this. The main thing that happened in the last 15 years that caused this was new technology, meaning us getting into social media, smartphones.

[00:07:21] And there's a few different factors, I think, there. One is that you have a slot machine in your hand, which nobody recognizes that they have a slot machine in their hand, meaning they're going to get the dopamine thrill every three or five scrolls that a slot machine gives you. It's like a penny slot machine, right? It's like the cost. You don't feel the cost that much of playing until later. And so that is a big deal. I think it's a really big deal.

[00:07:51] I'm not saying I don't do it. I'm just saying it's a big deal on our mental health. Then, of course, we have other issues, especially with teenagers, with what happens in social media. And that's a very serious issue that we're not able to address yet or know how to address around just people's self-worth and comparison and how they learn about how to be in the world.

[00:08:16] Being exposed to a lot of things because there's very little controls in place. They're being exposed to a lot of different ways of being, some of which are very toxic. So that's another factor. I think the world is busier. We're getting busier. We're getting faster. Now, there's very positive things to all this, too. But I'm just talking about the negative things. So there's all of that.

[00:08:41] I think there's other things when you get into more of the integrative model, like why are physically autoimmune issues and you have metabolism issues. That's just insane. Two-thirds of Americans have prediabetes. And so these things affect our mental health. And we're not educated to know that. So now we have all these environmental, nutritional factors that are building and building. So there's a lot going on here. We're dealing with a lot.

[00:09:09] We're dealing also now with exposure to news in a way we've never been exposed to. So now we are seeing violence so quickly now in our hand all day long around the world. And that is a lot to digest. So there's a lot. I think there's a lot of factors. I think you're right. No, I think you're right. And I think there's two other things that you alluded to this. But I do think there's something in the environment which is fascinating.

[00:09:36] And I do think there's something around the marketing and industrialization of food production, for example. I think that's been absolutely fascinating. And also the rise of ultra high processed foods has been something which, again, it goes back to that concept of the slot machine in your hand. You're also eating dopamine supplements. Sure, totally. But also you've got people who I think in the marketing world are manufacturing a mental health crisis to sell products.

[00:10:03] The amount of people I've listened to selling a supplement who've talked about these particular situations. And you're talking to the worried well, really, on the whole. And you're persuading sometimes the worried well, who have very little, in a sense, to be worried about, to see themselves or label themselves having a mental health issue.

[00:10:21] And what you have is this massive ramp of worried well who are getting in the way of people with genuine, real traumatic sort of issues where, in a sense, people like you should be spending your time. I don't know what you think about that. I think it's complicated. I don't generally think that most people who sell things believe they are.

[00:10:47] I think generally from all the people I've met, they don't believe they're taking advantage. But I think that the tools are getting more sophisticated to sell it in very, very sophisticated ways. So, like, the marketing tools are getting better and better. Excuse me. And so we can really work with the way the primitive brain works with addictive cycles, dopamine cycles, more and more.

[00:11:15] But I don't think people are mostly sitting in a thing doing their fingers going, oh, how am I going to take this over and manipulate people? I think more so what's going on is we're in, like, this wave where nobody really knows what we're doing with each other. And we are in a big cycle here of using these tools to get people more into a robotic brain than we realize. And that's what I would say. I would say that it's happening.

[00:11:40] But I know that most people are really taking a step back to see what's going on. I think most people aren't. Interesting. You should try a social media conference, a marketing conference sometime. It might be eye-opening for you. Yeah. Very interesting. And I think one of the fields that particularly seems to have taken off in the States is psychedelics. And I'd actually like to talk to someone who seems to know what it's all about without the hype. What is this? Is it a science?

[00:12:10] Is there are extraordinary claims made about it being a complete panacea of dealing with every single known condition known to man thing. I just wonder if you give us a bit of a background on it from a sort of more informed perspective. So we are the largest psychedelic therapy training in the world. So I have a lot of exposure to what's going on. We only train medical providers and clinicians. We're on that end of the training spectrum.

[00:12:39] We're continuing medical education institute. I would say that it's definitely not a panacea by any means. However, there are some pretty amazing results, particularly the MDMA study, which got rejected by the FDA in August. And there was a lot of political nuances to that rejection. They're going to have to go through another study, it looks like.

[00:13:02] We're seeing up to 70% reduction in symptoms with durability when this was treatment-resistant PTSD for these people that they've tried multiple other treatments and nothing working. And you go in and you start having a reduction in symptoms after your first session. That's a multi-session protocol with a lot of therapy integrated into it. Psilocybin is the next medicine.

[00:13:32] There's three big ones right now. Psilocybin, which is in phase three trials now. So maybe we see an application in 2027-ish to the FDA. Those results aren't quite as robust. That's typically, it depends which study, but it's usually treatment-resistant depression or major depression.

[00:13:53] But they're definitely substantial as good, seems to be in the phase two papers, roughly as good as or better sometimes than antidepressants. I think we don't know the durability fully yet. These studies are not that old. In terms of long-term studies following people, I don't know that they're meant for that, honestly. I don't know that psychedelic therapy is meant for a multi-year resolution. I think it's more of a catalyst treatment.

[00:14:23] And then we have ketamine therapy, which is being used mostly off-label. There is an indication of what's a drug called sprabotyl. And that also has great results. That can sometimes, depending on the studies, be up to 60%, 70% reduction after one treatment. You could have suicidal ideation go away after your first treatment, where you were ready to go kill yourself level of stuff. That's real. That happens.

[00:14:52] But there are risks to psychedelics. There's risks. It's not a panacea. It doesn't work for everyone. There's contraindications. So that's the quick overview. I have a personal history with psychedelics that I actually had a hard time from psychedelics in my early 20s. I'm 49. That kind of led me to wanting to help the movement come in safely and with caution, but also helping bring it forward.

[00:15:23] Interesting. The other one I've heard mentioned a lot is LST as well. So LST is in now phase three also. It's a little behind psilocybin and then DMA. But it did get breakthrough. But that's not, it's not a, it's not, the study isn't psychedelic therapy. Neither is psilocybin, although you could say it is. It's called psychological support. But LST is actually, that study is for anxiety, I believe. Yeah. Generalized anxiety.

[00:15:52] So for people who are manufacturing and selling plant-based or non-plant-based solutions around microdosing using drugs or whatever, and they're claiming quite significant impacts, is that something we should take with a degree of caution? Or are they right to be quite aggressive and bullish and optimistic about their stuff they're selling? Microdosing is largely anecdotal.

[00:16:22] In terms of, if you go and try and really dig into evidence, it's still scant. We don't have any FDA trials far along in microdosing or, it doesn't have to be an FDA trial, but there's just not a ton of research there. I, anecdotally, I hear a lot of people swear by it, but that's anecdotal. I don't know. I don't microdose. I don't know much about it, honestly.

[00:16:48] We don't teach about microdosing because it's not legal, and it's also not highly studied. That's what I would say about it. Yes. It's interesting, isn't it? We've got quite a lot of evidence over here with these products, with veterans, you call them veterans, people from the military. There's quite a few studies going on here in clinical trials because, obviously, they've been illegal in this country, but essentially now they've been decriminalised, which means they're not illegal, but you won't get arrested for using them.

[00:17:17] It does seem to me to be one of the exciting features of, as you call it, integrative medicine, but how do these psychedelics actually work? I think there's a few different angles here. One angle is that you have some, depending on the medicine, you do have a biochemical interaction that it might be anti-inflammatory in the brain.

[00:17:45] There's other possibilities, but you've got the biological mechanism that might start to alleviate some symptoms. You have that aspect, and then you have more of the psychological aspect, which is it impacts the default mode network, and it loosens up your ability to see things differently, be open to new perspectives.

[00:18:12] It also can amplify unconscious processes that we're having, and that's very common. We can start to see, if you take it more from a psychodynamic lens of our childhood and what happened there, it often will amplify different dynamics that happened in childhood, and you start to see make links, which is a psychodynamic-ish type of thing.

[00:18:40] And then there's also trauma. If we take trauma as not talking about PTSD, if we take trauma, PTSD as a version of symptoms of trauma, but if we take trauma more as a process in the nervous system that we're all on a spectrum on,

[00:18:59] where the nervous system isn't really in homeostasis due to traumatic events in our lifetime, these medicines tend to amplify traumatic processes, where you can start to work with them. MDMA does a great job at it because it can amplify some trauma, but it also reduces the fear state.

[00:19:22] The other medicines don't always reduce the fear state, so they're a little bit of a different way into trauma. Yeah. And so is it creating a space or a way of looking at the trauma in a different sort of way, or almost a dissociative sort of type processes? Sorry, I'm trying to find a language to ask a better question. I think it depends on the medicine because MDMA, I wouldn't call it dissociative as much as ketamine is.

[00:19:50] MDMA is more like, it could be more like you're just in a very loving witness of self, where you just really are able to find compassion toward self and to process the trauma in that way. Maybe even find compassion toward other, forgiveness, those types of things. These are often like described in post-traumatic growth after you process a lot of trauma over time.

[00:20:15] And ordinary consciousness therapies often get to these things, self-love, more compassion for others, empathy. But that's MDMA, ketamine, it's a dissociative. So it's more what you're referring to sometimes when you're processing trauma, where you're removed from it, looking at it from above almost. Yeah. So psilocybin could be a host of things. It could just be like, it gets you into the somatic movement of the trauma.

[00:20:43] It gets your body to just move the trauma through and it takes over. It could still be scary, but if you have a good therapist with you, then they can help you process that. So it's, they can all blend and do different ways of processing trauma. Interesting. Interesting. I mean, I've heard claims made for psilocybin of increases in neuroplasticity. Is that a thing? It's a thing. Yeah. It's definitely a thing.

[00:21:12] There's, there's dendritic sprouting and dendritic pruning going on. And so it's definitely a thing with psilocybin. It's a thing with ketamine. It can be a thing with MDMA in different ways. So there's this neuroplasticity piece. There's the whole basically altering the default mode network for a moment in time. It often results in a lot of new meaning making.

[00:21:38] And then there's this anti-inflammatory piece to some of them where I can help the brain's immune system, so to speak, reset. So if you go and buy pills and you can go onto internet, get yourself some shrooms or whatever it is, and you can self-medicate, is that wise? Is it wise?

[00:22:00] I'm a proponent of psychedelic therapy done through legal channels, if it can be personally, like where there's a lot of rules and structure that you can lean into knowing that people are trained in a certain way. Like doing it on your own or recreationally, like first of all, you don't know what you're getting. There's set and setting issues. You might freak out and not have someone to help you through that. And now you could traumatize yourself in a new way or re-traumatize yourself.

[00:22:30] So I don't know that it's wise to just mess around. I think it would be better if you could find someone to support you through it. But obviously with psilocybin, I mean, in Europe, you could go to Amsterdam if you wanted to. There's plenty of great therapists out there doing this work. Yeah. Interesting. I noticed we're rampaging around your site. I don't mean to change direction, but I just noticed all the stuff around. No, go wherever we want to go. Yeah.

[00:23:00] No, I just noticed all the stuff about nutrition and I'm a bit of a fan about nutrition. I don't think we think enough about it. And I'm just wondering whether you pull those two areas of practice together or you keep them separate because each has a certain sort of set of benefits and results. I just wondered where we start that discussion. Do you mean the two practices being nutrition and psychedelics? Yes. Yes, I do.

[00:23:25] We definitely, in our clinic, we definitely would want to understand what people's nutrition are as patients and then pull that in, obviously, depending on what's going on there, which is many people are struggling in their nutrition. Because there's also an opportune time after psychedelic therapy to make some behavioral changes, right? So it could get pulled in that way.

[00:23:51] I would say, generally speaking, I'm not practicing as a therapist anymore right now. But I would say, generally speaking, I want to definitely know about someone's nutrition and explore that with them. Because it's such a huge factor in terms of, like, you could do all the depth psychotherapy, talk to the end of time about yourself and your past and whatever.

[00:24:16] But if you're eating really poorly for your body, you're probably going to feel really bad no matter how much you talk about yourself. Yeah. And that's the thing that just isn't dealt with, like, enough. It's not dealt with enough. And I think as therapists, we need to clue in here. We don't need to become nutritionists. But we need to clue in, like, maybe why our person is looping and looping for a year with me. Maybe it's because of all that fast food they eat every day. And that's a real thing.

[00:24:45] Like, that absolutely could be causing the problem. Yeah. Yeah. It seems obvious to say it now, doesn't it? But it is fascinating how flimsy some nutritional science actually is. Maybe I'm being overly cynical again, perhaps. I think nutritional research is challenging, actually.

[00:25:06] From the little I know about nutritional research, it's not the simplest thing to isolate and do good studies on nutritional research. And at the same time, we could just look at people's blood work and look at some factors of, like, you have a metabolic disorder because of the way you're eating. Like, fix the way you're eating, your metabolic disorder goes away, and now you feel 20 times better. Yeah. Those things we can test for, right?

[00:25:36] Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. So, as you say, you're not practicing, but you've got these new toolkits. You've got the psychedelics. You've got the nutritional stuff. You've got the talking therapies. What else is in the toolkit? As a medical provider, functional medicine would be in the toolkit where you start looking at systems in the body and what the system itself's health is.

[00:26:04] What's your digestive system's health? And there's a gut-brain access, so how is that digestive health or disorder affecting your mental health? Now, that tends to go outside the scope of conventional medicine in terms of actually dealing with a lot of these issues in digestive health.

[00:26:24] They're looking for some pretty blaring disorders that they also fall into the problem of treating symptoms and not the root causes of digestive issues. So, functional medicine is looking for root causes just like integrative psychiatry is looking for root causes.

[00:26:47] So, an integrative psychiatrist is going to need to be trained on gut health because it's such a big factor in brain health is gut health. So, that's an example of one of many of different aspects of the way the body can go into a disordered state in different systems. There's metabolic health. There's hormonal health, which is related to metabolic health. All these things matter. Sure.

[00:27:17] And so, if ideally you're a person that wants to get well and it's like, where do I start? Ideally, I think you get a good functional medicine workup on your body. Somebody that knows how to do this stuff, which is another issue. It's complicated stuff. The algorithms are not as clean as conventional medicine. They're not researched in the same way. And then maybe you get a therapist or somebody because you need to help with your psychology.

[00:27:48] Yeah. That's interesting, isn't it? I'm just thinking about what you're saying here because I was just thinking about how docs, doctors in the UK are trained. And they get a sort of a general, obviously, medical sort of dipping. But then they become massive specialists in one very small area of the body, a piece of gut or a finger. Right.

[00:28:12] And it just strikes me that then they get massively busy doing their unique piece of one inch of specialism. And then where on earth do they get this opportunity to think about what you're saying here, which is the sort of holistic piece? And I find that quite staggering. I don't know what it's in the US, but it strikes me that. Well, it's very similar. Is it? Yeah.

[00:28:34] And there's obviously the benefits of reductionism and specialization, which is like I had a benign tumor in my spine this past summer. And I had the specialist pull it out of there without having any issues now. That's obviously the benefit of reductionism and specialization. The major drawback is we lose generalists who need to deal with the whole person.

[00:29:02] When we're talking about mental health, you're talking about the whole person. You don't want to play the reductionistic game, I don't think, of mental health specifically, because you're really losing sight of a lot of factors that contribute to that. So there's some problems with it that we're not addressing yet as a system at all. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting as well, of course, that we also not just have physical systems, but we have environmental systems. So there's that. You mentioned the mobile phone earlier.

[00:29:27] And I think in Australia, there's an experiment, isn't it, to restrict access to mobile phones before the age of 16? I wondered what your view was on that. Putting aside all the freedom of speech and social media, making billions of dollars thing, just in terms of that thing. What's my view on restricting cell phones for young adults, for kids? Yeah. For under 16-year-olds. My view is that I'm going to try and keep a phone away from my kid until they're at least 16.

[00:29:57] Really? Yeah. In terms of social media, yes. I'm okay with certain types of access to things like FaceTiming with her grandparents. Or I'm okay with some entertainment stuff, with some show watching and things. But yeah, in terms of social media, I don't know if I'll pull it off because it's going to be very challenging too when she's a teenager. I would love for her not to see social media until she's 18, quite frankly.

[00:30:23] I think it's extremely complicated to navigate this and extremely addictive. I think we are not willing to discuss as a culture or even a world how addictive social media is. I'm not willing to discuss that. It's very addictive. It's one of the classic things that any therapist will tell a new client is restrict your access to news and to social media.

[00:30:51] Even anecdotally, we all know it's a starting point. Yeah. And how many people can pull it off? We might say that, but it's very hard now that we're in it. Like maybe you take a fast from it. It's like a drug, right? But then you go back to it. And again, I'm not saying I don't do this. Like I've restricted myself from social media. I'm watching stuff on YouTube now because social media for me is too much. I get overwhelmed with all the comments and this and that.

[00:31:18] But then you get people as well who are particularly susceptible to comments and susceptible to the thing that goes on. And you get people who are not susceptible, who built resilience or a toughness to be able to deal with that stuff. Totally. You get both. Yeah. And we'll see where it goes. It's a social experiment that's super new. So we'll see what happens here in 10, 20 years. Who knows what's next also?

[00:31:48] You mentioned AI with therapists and things. It's like, where's that going? In terms of a therapist, what do they need to do in terms of staying relevant? So you better get some really unique skills as a therapist and have a really push your personality a little for people to want to be with you. Because over time, if they don't want to be with you, they're just going to be with the robot that doesn't have a personality. Because you're right. Chat, GBT can tell you.

[00:32:18] I did educational testing recently, extensive educational testing on myself. And I put it into chat for an analysis. And it gave me a better analysis than the tester that I saw. I felt like it's good. I could say at least it's good. Yeah. And quicker and cheaper. Yeah. Where's that going? I know. Especially when you don't need the creative quality as much to therapy, at least depending on what you're wanting it for.

[00:32:47] There is a creative art to it. It's a healing art. So, yeah, I don't know where this is going. We'll see. It is interesting because I remember reading, I do quite work in evaluation. I remember seeing some data around something along the lines of that the number one feature of the effectiveness of particularly non-directive counseling type approaches is just the quality of the relationship we have with the person. So if you like it and get on with it, it's likely to work.

[00:33:15] And actually the benefits are diminishing returns after eight sessions. Right. And I went into a therapy practice recently with people going twice a week and they've been gone for four years. And I'm saying to them, what's this about? Are you just, have you just become friends now? And you're just rocking up for a chat. And the person who was talking to me about this said, yeah, effectively that's what I'm doing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's being paid to have someone to listen to you. It depends on the model, right?

[00:33:41] That is one of the, especially you get into long-term psychodynamic models. Yeah. Psychoanalytic models. Yeah. You're paying someone to listen to you for sure in those models. I think there is other models where you're, you are trying to extract a lot of insight or actual behavioral change or someone's challenging you or trauma models. You're really trying to process trauma out of your nervous system. But there's a lot of models and you're right. AI is a thing.

[00:34:11] It is. Interesting. I'm glad you agree because I actually conducted my own experiment and actually did a psychodynamic session with ChatGPT recently and with DeepSeq as well. I have to say that was better. That was a little bit more penetratingly, what's the word, insightful than ChatGPT. Anyway, but I sat there for a good 40 minutes going through. And actually, I got to the stage of having my own therapy session with it because it was so useful.

[00:34:40] It's worth a try. It's very useful. I've done dream analysis with it and it's super useful. Yeah. And it's also, yeah, you want to be thinking about this professionally, especially if you're not at the end of your profession. If you're at the end, you're retiring in five years, okay. But if you're at the beginning or even in the middle, like you better think about it. You better stay on the edge of knowledge and things.

[00:35:07] Because this will impact, especially as younger generations. They're like, this is how I do things. It's more effective. If it's cheaper, I'll get my answers right when I just pull my phone out of my pocket. Yeah. And especially intersectionalities as well. Because I think people like that want to be in a community with therapists who are like them as well. I think that lived experience thing might become more prevalent, more important as time rolls on. I think so. That's right.

[00:35:33] And that's the flip side of all this, which is there's going to still be longing for the connection with other people. Yeah. That is real. And especially if you're dealing with things which are linked to attachment or something like that, the only way to learn that is to be attached to another person so you can explore those things. Because that sort of almost overly intellectualized approach with the psychodynamic thing is less effective. I just looked at the time and I thought we'd been trying for five minutes. I realized that we've been going a lot longer.

[00:36:03] And I need to be respectful of your time. Because I could chat to you all evening and I really shouldn't. Yeah. Look, tell me, how can people find out more about your work? How can they find out more about you? Tell us how that all works. The main piece to check out is psychiatryinstitute.com. That's the Integrative Psychiatry Institute's website. You can check out our psychedelic training there. We have lots of different trainings. The other place to check out is the Higher Practice Podcast. So that's me and my co-founder.

[00:36:29] If you like podcasts, since you're listening to this one, check that out. It's a mental health podcast. So we talk a lot about optimization of mental health and how you get better and do things a little bit easier for yourself. Sounds fascinating. I think I'll add it onto my own list. Okay. Kurt, it's been an absolute pleasure and honor to talk to you this evening. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you so much. And hopefully there'll be an excuse to talk again in the future. Yes. I think that's been absolutely fascinating. Great. Thank you.

[00:36:59] Thank you so much for your time. I hope you found that episode useful and entertaining. If you want to support our work, please go to resilienceunravel.com and you can become a member there as well. You can also send us a question there and even apply to do a podcast. You can also leave a review on Apple Podcasts or any of the other podcast hosts of your choice,

[00:37:25] as well as getting hold of some useful resources about resilience and a whole lot more. Join us next time on the next edition of Resilience Unraveled.