177: Our Beloved Fabrice returns! New Psychedelic Research!

Rhonda, Fabrice, and David discuss psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, Fabrice’s wonderful new marriage, his fascinating new podcast (http://peaceatlast.us/), and more.

David and Rhonda are thrilled to have our beloved friend and colleague, Dr. Fabrice Nye, as the special guest on today’s podcast. Many of you will remember Fabrice as the man who gave birth to the Feeling Good Podcast, and acted as host for the first 133 podcasts.

Fabrice describes many events since he turned over the reins to Rhonda earlier this year, including his recent marriage and move to the beautiful but fire-ravaged Russian River area roughly 100 miles north of San Francisco. However, Fabrice still maintains his clinical practice on a part time basis in Redwood City, in the San Francisco Bay area.

The main focus of today’s podcast is Fabrice’s participation in promising new research on the treatment of PTSD. The participants in the study are veterans receiving psychotherapy that is assisted by treatment with MDMA during extended treatment session. MDMD is also known as the party drug, Ecstasy. However, the MDMA used in the research is chemically pure, whereas Ecstasy is generally obtained on the street and may not be pure.

Fabrice describes MDMA as an “empathogen” that makes people more loving and more in touch with their emotions. This can make it easier for patients with PTSD to talk about their traumatic experiences and painful feelings, which people with PTSD usually try to avoid. Avoidance makes all forms of anxiety much worse, where as exposure is usually beneficial.

Patients in the study received three treatment sessions, and a preliminary analysis indicated that one third of them improved to the point that they no longer had symptoms severe enough to be diagnosed with PTSD. Further studies are in progress, including a study with a control group, as well as follow-up studies to find out whether the improvement continued and whether some of the patients relapsed.

Fabrice also describes the fascinating new trend in treatment of a variety of conditions with psychedelics, including psilocybin, mescaline, and ayawauska. I expressed my personal support for this trend, as these substances have been used by hundreds, if not thousands of years, for spiritual purposes by indigenous people throughout the world.

And perhaps the coolest thing we learned was that Fabrice will be starting his own terrific podcast entitled PeaceAtLast.us about the time today’s podcast will be published. PeaceAtLast.us will focus on the overlap between spirituality and psychotherapy, a topic that I have always found extremely interesting and helpful in my own clinical work using TEAM-CBT. You might want to check out the new Fabrice podcast! I know that Rhonda and I will!

After the podcast, we received the following email from Fabrice, which includes many resources for those of you wanting more information about psychedelics and psychotherapy, as well as his new podcast.

Hi David and Rhonda,

It felt so good to be reunited with you for an hour. Wish we didn’t have to cut it so short. Here are some of the links that you may want to provide to your listeners.

• Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which sponsors and funds the Phase 3 trial of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD: https://maps.org/
• Michal & Annie Mithoefer, lead researchers for the study: https://mapspublicbenefit.com/staff/michael-mithoefer-m-d/
• Psychedelic research at Johns Hopkins University: https://hopkinspsychedelic.org/
• Roland Griffiths, main researcher for psilocybin studies at JHU: https://hopkinspsychedelic.org/griffiths
• List of federal clinical trials involving psychedelics in the U.S.: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=&term=psychedelic&cntry=US
• Article on how to have a legal psychedelic experience (but not necessarily a safe one): https://psychedelic.support/resources/legal-ways-to-pursue-psychedelic-experiences/
• And finally... Here’s how to find my new podcast, to be launched on February 6, 2020: http://peaceatlast.us/

Fabrice Nye fabrice@life.net