The Darker Side of Psychedelics: Response to NY Magazine's Cover Story podcast (Part 1)

The Psychedelic Psychiatrist

For those of you who don’t know, New York Magazine's Cover Story published a podcast series called 'Power Trip’ looking into the dark side of psychedelic therapy. The podcast highlights various traumatic experiences that have occurred under the umbrella of psychedelic therapy. One woman tells of the abuse she experienced by her therapist during the MAPS MDMA trials for PTSD. The Cover Story podcast additionally went on to paint a pretty dark picture of psychedelic therapies and the research being done in this work. Our podcast here with 'The Psychedelic Psychiatrist' takes a look at what was discussed and tries to offer a more balanced perspective compared to what was portrayed by the Cover Story creators. ⁠
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Before going any further we wanted to make the following very clear: we have the utmost respect to the people in this series who shared extremely traumatic and vulnerable moments, and in no way invalidate their experience nor offer any excuses for what happened to them. Their stories should be known and we thank them for bringing light to the matter.⁠
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There are legitimate concerns and dangers when working with these medicines, we will address these while offering a more widened view on the topic. ⁠
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Due to the importance of this topic we thought it would be of service to enlist some help from a colleague in the psychedelic medicine field. Someone who we knew has a watchful eye on what is happening in this field, and could offer some great perspectives. Kyle Keller is the founder of Minnesota's first psychedelic assisted therapy clinic, Intero Psychedelic Therapy. He is a licensed independent clinical social worker with 16 years experience in the mental health field. Kyle specializes in psychedelic assisted therapies as well as PTSD, depression, anxiety, and OCD. ⁠
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We are excited to share our conversation with Kyle and hope to offer some insight into such a serious matter. This is Part 1 of our conversation.
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Thank you. ⁠
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-Dr. Galindo ⁠
LINKS:
Kyle Keller's clinic in MN: https://www.intero-psychedelic.com/
Cover Story Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/7dj2XnCMxGpK8W3tGWjiqw?si=c3fbdbdad82546dd
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