WEBVTT - Julie Holland Prescribes Human Connection 0:00:02.800 --> 0:00:05.920 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:11.320 Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today is psychiatrist 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.880 Julie Holland. She has a private practice in New York 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:18.239 City and is the author of several books, including the 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:23.040 New York Times bestseller Moody Bitches at a Memoir Weekends 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:27.639 at Bellevue. For decades, she's been researching the use of 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:31.639 psychedelics to treat mental health issues, with a particular focus 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:35.080 on using M D m A and cannabis to treat 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:39.319 post traumatic stress disorder. Many people are struggling with their 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.720 mental health in this long period of social distancing, but 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:47.880 Holland says, even before the trauma this pandemic has caused, 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:52.080 we were not doing that well mentally. I've been doing 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:56.440 phone sessions from up here in Duchess County, UM, and 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:58.200 some of my patients are still in the city, but 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:00.600 a lot of my patients have sort of flown the 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:04.000 coup to places where there's a lower density of people, 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:09.280 but importantly places where there's more nature and they're getting outside. Um, 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:13.040 they're getting more sun, more nature, and that I think 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:15.240 for me, it's been a real bomb and one of 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:18.959 the things that's helped me feel balanced or saying, you know, 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:22.199 a good antidote sort of to how toxic the news 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:24.280 is and everything that's happening is if I go out 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.160 into the woods or the swamp or the lake, and 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:30.440 I really feel much much calmer. You know, we can 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:33.760 discuss what the snapshot is and what the health of 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:37.560 the country is and beyond during the COVID, but to 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:41.080 whatever extent you're willing to venture an opinion, what was 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:43.640 the mental health of the country like prior to the 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:46.120 Cobb Oh? Yes, well, you know, we actually had a 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.680 couple of big epidemics before this pandemic, right. We had 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.120 the overdose epidemic. We had more and more people, uh, 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:56.920 not only dying of opiate overdoses or accidental overdoses, but 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:00.000 also more people drinking themselves to death. And we also 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.040 had what was called the epidemic of loneliness, where we 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:06.480 had more and more people living alone. Everybody had gotten 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.880 into their own little pod even prior to this pandemic, 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:12.840 but we were not happier because of it. I mean, 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:16.360 all the isolation. People felt very lonely, which makes people 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.839 feel both depressed and anxious. I would love to talk 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:24.400 more about why social isolation makes us so anxious. You 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:28.640 point out that there are strains in our society beyond 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.720 the COVID, the predate the COVID, and I want to 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:36.000 get to later on when people are isolated COVID or no, 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.639 and when people are feeling an abundance of distress, are 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:46.440 the cures, healthcare, guaranteed income ways to address I mean, 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.560 it seems that people are lonely, they can't afford healthcare, 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:52.400 they can't afford food, and they don't have a job. 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:56.560 The constant fear of the future. Right, So it's impossible 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:00.240 for me to talk about depression anxiety without talking about 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:05.559 politics and health policy and social policy. They're so intertwined. 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:08.359 And you were asking, you know, before the pandemic, how 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:10.760 were we doing, and I was saying, we really weren't 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:15.000 doing very well. You know, whenever there's sort of gross inequality, 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:17.440 a lot of people aren't going to do well. And 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:19.640 it's not just that they have more physical problems, but 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.119 they have more mental health problems. And addiction is a 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.400 sign of unrest and on wellness. It's not really a 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.200 thing in and of itself, it's a symptom of something bigger. 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:31.360 So the fact that we had more and more people 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.560 addicted to opiates and and overdosing. I mean, there was 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:37.000 a glut and there, you know, there was a lot 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:39.560 of money being made and making the drug and distributing 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.800 the drug. But you know, gobormates is this great thing 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:45.120 which is don't ask why the addiction, asked why the pain. 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.640 We were in pain. People were in pain before the pandemic. 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.120 You know, nine eleven was very tough on the inhabitants 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:54.760 of New York City, and people got very anxious and 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:58.720 started paying more attention to political issues. And then, honestly, 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.200 you know, after Donald got elected, you know, everybody in 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.720 the town who knew him and knew who he was 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:06.640 and what he was made of, there was a lot 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.880 of despair and and anxiety. And you know, the type 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:13.800 of people who come to see a private psychiatrist I 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.680 think tend to lean left, honestly, so I definitely have 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.880 a bias sample. But my patients were really not only 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:23.039 afraid for the country and for our democracy, but also 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.280 for the planet. You know, there's this sort of background 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:28.840 app that's always running, whether we know it or not, 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:31.960 which is that we are in sort of mourning for 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:34.760 what's happening to the planet, and there's a deep level 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:39.360 of despair. And the more disconnected we are from ourselves, 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.440 from our friends, from each other, from the planet, the 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.040 worse we feel. The more depressed we are, the more 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:47.719 anxious we are. So it's been going on, and I 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:51.279 would add to that, we're moving further and further and 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.000 further away from a connection between the will of the 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:56.839 people and what the government's going to do. The government 0:04:56.880 --> 0:04:59.680 operates completely independent of the will of the people, right, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.400 and they do whatever they want to do. They just 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:05.679 ignore what mainstream thought is about. But the end result 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.440 for we the people is that we get despairing and 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.279 depressed because we're powerless. Right, It doesn't matter what they want, right, 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:15.400 I mean, you know, the popular vote doesn't matter. This 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:19.719 sense of powerlessness is a setup for depression. Right. This 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:22.960 is your fifth book with a book like this comes 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.679 along once that process, Like how did this book start 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.560 to germinate with you? This book started to germinate while 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:33.200 I was stand up paddling on a lake and there 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:35.479 was mist. There was all this mist coming out of 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:37.120 the lake, and I wanted to be in the midst. 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:38.599 I'm going to be enveloped in the mist, and I 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.560 was paddling out to where the mist was, but wherever 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:43.919 I went, it seemed like the mist wasn't there anymore, 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:45.760 and it was somewhere else. And I would paddle somewhere 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:47.359 else where it looked like the mist was thick, and 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:49.760 then it wasn't there. And the thing I finally realized 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:52.640 is you're in the mist. The mist is all around you. 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.520 It's just that because of the light, you can't see it, 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:57.880 but it's there. And it was, you know, the sort 0:05:57.880 --> 0:05:59.920 of epiphany to me that you know, we're always chase 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:01.920 sing for things, and really the things that we want 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:05.040 were the really right in our backyard. And you know, 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.000 while that ended up not being the main message of 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.560 good chemistry, it is definitely a message for me now 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:12.840 and for my patients now that you know, a lot 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:15.280 of people were spinning their wheels and running around and 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:17.919 now that they're sort of stuck in place, it turns 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:20.000 out that they do have a lot of things that 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:22.680 they need and that it's been good to sort of 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:26.359 hunker down and go inward or be with family. You know, 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:30.839 it's a cocooning period. One. Yeah, in the beginning, everybody 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.240 was like if I just knew when this would end, 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.200 I would be okay, you know, if I knew it 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:37.880 was just for the summer or you know, I mean 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:39.960 when it started, it was like when if I know 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:42.960 it was just April, right, But that was a big deal. 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:45.320 For the first few months with my patients, was just 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.279 this idea that they needed to be able to encapsulate it. 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.039 You know, if it could be compartmentalized, then they could 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.240 deal with it. But this idea that you don't know 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:56.120 how long it's going to go on. The thing, obviously, 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:58.359 Michael Turn is about my children. I mean my children. 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.400 I want their social skill ills to mature, and I 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:04.040 want them and they're growing so quickly. My daughter who's 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.159 seven now, I mean she's like Lillian Hellman, you know, 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:08.719 the stuff that comes out of her mouth now, which 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:12.040 is kind of amazing. She's so sharp and so clever 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.880 and so and I want, I don't want their development, 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:19.280 which prior to this we were kind of thrilled by. 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:22.640 And I'm just really just chattered and I'm in a 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:26.520 lot of pain that I'm suffering about how although there's 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.880 some beautiful unintended consequences where they found each other and 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.320 they only have each other. So the bonding and the 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:36.680 relationships between them have become so profound. But my kids, 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:38.480 like when you have a five year old boy turned 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:40.680 to you the other and he goes, I missed New York. 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:44.160 You know, he said, I missed New York, and I'm 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.119 not thought to myself. You know, it sounds like Steve 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:48.520 Rupel in prison. You know what I mean. I missed 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:52.240 New York. I missed Studio fifty four. You know, my 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.080 son's five, and he's like, I missed you. I'm going, 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.120 Oh my god, tore me apart apart. You know. In 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.080 my dealing my patients, sometimes I'm talking to a parent 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.280 who's very worried about their kid and whether their kids 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.080 going to go in or or go virtually. Um. I 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:09.520 also have some patients who are teachers who are really 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.520 worried about the kids. And and you know, everybody has 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:15.600 a different opinion about what should happen. Everybody has the 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:18.760 same fears. Everybody wants what's best for the kids. But 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:21.520 it really is a no win situation. You know. It's 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.160 just like everybody gets the misery spread sort of thing. 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.280 Nobody really gets exactly what they want, you know, certainly 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.360 with hybrid it's for my teachers. It's like the worst 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.960 of both worlds. But the thing about our kids is, 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:36.000 you know, we know what they're missing. You know, my 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:38.280 son didn't get to be a c I T at camp, 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.000 or uh, you know, didn't get to play drums in 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:43.600 the in the high school musical, or somebody didn't get 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:45.280 to go to the prom. Like, we know what those 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:46.960 things are and we know what they're missing. But the 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.120 kids themselves who haven't they don't know what they're missing, 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:53.040 they haven't gone through it. I think it's actually easier 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:54.960 on them. I mean, I'm not saying it's easy on 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.480 the kids. I know, and more kids are being diagnosed 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.160 with anxiety and being treated with the antiangs I d 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:02.760 meads right now than ever before. So no, it's not 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:05.600 easy on them. But sometimes I think that, you know 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.880 what we wish for them, it's this extra layer of 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.360 mourning or anxiety that maybe they don't even really have. 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:16.560 I mean, they are more resilient, certainly. I've told this 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:19.160 story before, I think on this podcast, so I'll do 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.040 the distilled version of my friend who lived in Italy. 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.400 He was British originally and he was there for several years. 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:27.520 And he came back and I said, when you came 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:31.040 back after nine years in Italy, what's the changes you noticed? 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:34.640 He said. One thing I don't like of these applications 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:38.560 that these people have for dating and meeting. He said. 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:43.280 The other thing I hate is ways, because sometimes getting 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:45.959 lost it's the greatest thing that could happen to You 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:48.760 might get lost and go somebody to get directions, and 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:50.720 when you go to the gas station you meet your 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:54.000 wife of the cash register, right, And he said, we've 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:56.559 taken all the serendipity out of out of the world. 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:02.760 Now do you find that people are leading on apps, devices, 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.440 all this kind of stuff social media more than ever now? Yeah. 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:09.880 You know when when I wrote Good Chemistry, it was 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:14.240 before COVID, but I was already saying, you know, put 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:16.440 down your phone. You have to go out and see 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:19.520 people in real space. First of all, you know, anybody's 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:22.160 profile picture, like maybe it's them, maybe it's them on 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:26.400 their best day, or maybe it's some photoshopic not even 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:28.600 be them. I mean you just you just don't know. 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:31.760 And also it's not you know how tall somebody is 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:34.200 or how they look three dimentially, it's really is also 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:37.079 how people smell. And this is something I explained in 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:41.040 Moody Bitches that we actually mate to some degree. You know, 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:44.400 Pheromone detection is a real thing, and it helps us 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:46.920 figure out not only whether we like the way someone smells, 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.960 but whether they would be a good physiological match for 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:53.000 us on a genetic level. You know, if you're immune 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:55.600 to five things and somebody else is immune to five things, 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:57.760 if you have a kid, it's possible that kid will 0:10:57.800 --> 0:10:59.920 be immune to all ten things. So you want somebody 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:03.360 who's a little bit genetically dissimilar to you. And one 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:05.319 of the ways that the body figures that out for 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.520 mating is through smell, So you know, until there's like 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.760 a scratch and sniff app I think that people are 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.280 going to have to really you know, it's good to 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:16.640 get together before you know, I just tell people to 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:18.760 I mean before COVID, I was like just you know, 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.040 meet for a coffee or whatever. But you can get 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.880 so delusional about who you're texting or you know, if 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:26.560 they happen to spell the way that you think, you know, 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:30.080 if you care about spelling or uh, you know it's political, 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.000 but like you know, they you really it's not just 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.600 about how they spell and it is. You know, there 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:38.920 are such things as like auras and energies and you know, 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:41.640 souls and spiritual things like that. And you know, I 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.560 know psychiatrists aren't supposed to say any of those words, 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.320 but I think they're real, and I think that you know, 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:50.640 intuition is a real thing. You know, your gut reaction 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.240 to somebody, you're not gonna get. You just gonna project 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.280 all of your own things onto something because you don't 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.160 have enough information. Back to the book, which is that 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:02.839 so the mist is everywhere and you're pandling yourself towards 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.199 the mist that it's there. But what did you want 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.440 to cover in this book? What did you want? What experience? 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:09.880 What people have when they read the book. Well, the 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:13.000 book is really about how important it is for us 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.240 to connect and sort of the physical aspects of connection, 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:20.200 the physiology why our bodies are designed so that if 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:24.000 we feel connected, we are soothed, and if we feel disconnected, 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:27.920 we get kind of agitated and anxious or depressed. So 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.680 it's about these very basic ideas of connecting with the self, 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.959 being in your body, being present in the moment. Right. 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.440 So the way good chemistry is set up. The first 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.120 chapter is about connection with the self. The second chapter 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.000 is about connecting with another person and all about pheromones 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:46.000 and sex and orgasm and all that fun stuff. The 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:49.080 third chapters about family and how those connections work from 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:51.680 a physiological point of view. Right, So I start talking 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:54.680 a lot about oxytocin, which is a hormone that's involved 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:59.360 in pregnancy, nursing, delivery, and again, and it's very high 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:04.080 oxytose and state for orgasm. Then after self coupled Family, 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:06.600 there's a chapter in society where I talk about how 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:10.080 communities connect and what the physiology is of that, and 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:14.280 how oxytocin plays a role in us versus them. Right, 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:16.199 if you think, oh, you're on my you know you're 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:18.960 in my tribe, you're my people. But that guy over there, 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.960 you know he's them, that's an oxytocin effect. Also, then 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:26.840 there's a chapter on connecting with nature and about sort 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:31.640 of ecological activism versus this. You know, feeling despair, you 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.240 know that action will help you feel better, Plus it's 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.160 better for the planet. Then the last chapter is about 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:41.160 connecting with the cosmos, or perhaps if you're fortunate enough 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:43.400 to have had a psychedelic experience and you've had a 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.679 peak experience. You have this sense of everything is connected. 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:50.560 You know, it all makes sense, it's all connected, and 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.880 I'm part of that, and that is a peak mystical experience. 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:57.760 It is also a high oxytocin experience. So the book 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.120 is about oxytocin as sort of the the hormone or 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.520 the neuro transmitter that underlies all these feelings of connection. 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:08.280 They make us feel safe, like we belong. And oxytocin 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.160 is an antidepressant. It can be used to treat drug addiction, 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.559 and it coincidentally, there's some drugs that make you feel 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:16.720 safe and like you belong, and that's one of the 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:22.560 reasons why we use them. Psychiatrist Julie Holland. If it's 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:26.200 connection you're seeking, subscribe to Here's the Thing on the 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:30.400 I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:35.040 your podcasts. If Dr Holland's research into psychedelics to treat 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.600 mental illness has piqued your interest, be sure to check 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:41.880 out the Here's the Thing archives. At my conversation with 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:45.640 author Michael Pollen, I started looking at that really interesting 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:47.920 question is why is the species? Do we want to 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:50.520 change our consciousness? I mean, it's not adaptive, right, It 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:52.960 puts you at all sorts of risk. But we have 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:55.600 this desire and in fact, many animals have it too, 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:57.920 which is kind of a mystery, which which animals have 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.480 a desire to. Elephants love to get drunk, and you 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.600 can imagine how much it takes. You can hear the 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.960 rest of my conversation with Michael Pollen at Here's the 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:12.160 Thing dot Org after the Break. Psychiatrist Julie Holland explains 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:16.280 why she's dedicated her life to understanding how our brains 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:29.160 are wired. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:33.080 the Thing. Dr Julie Holland says she's hearing from a 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.560 lot of people who are self medicating their way through 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:40.000 the pandemic. I'm thirty five years sober in a twelve 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:42.880 step program, and I'm always mindful of, you know, the 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.240 substitutive nature. You know what else did I put in 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:51.720 their food? Sex, money, power, workaholism, love, addiction, whatever. I'm 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:54.160 wondering if you have seen that with your patients as well. 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.280 We're during lockdown. I don't want to use the word abuse, 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:04.320 but you know, medicating themselves with food pornography. Yeah, definitely, 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.880 all of it. Yeah, at the same time, well, you 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:12.160 can multitask with you know, two computers, I guess in theory, um, 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:14.560 I mean, there's there's a lot there to unpack, you know. 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.840 We there are all sorts of ways that people soothed themselves. 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:19.320 I think one thing to keep in mind is that 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.440 the way most of us were taught. The earliest ways 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.720 we were soothed were orally right, somebody stuck a past 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.160 fire in your mouth, or a bottle, or if you're lucky, 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:30.760 you got a nipple and abreast and a person holding you. 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.360 But still there were times when that wasn't available. You 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:36.800 learn to suck your thumb or bite your nails. You 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:40.560 start eating, maybe if you're a woman growing up in 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:43.320 the United States America, whenever you eat, you feel guilty, 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.400 and then you end up soothing that agitated guilty state 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:50.240 with more food. So the COVID nineteen like people gaining 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:54.840 nineteen pounds during the quarantine, is a real phenomenon for 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.280 my patients. The quarantine e has taken on a life 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.120 of its own. I definitely patients who are smoking more 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:05.040 pot um, you know, I thought it was fascinating that 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.480 cannabis went from being you know, Schedule one illegal drug 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:13.560 to like essential during the pandemic. That was like, okay, 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.119 that's pretty interesting. Moon. And you know, the other thing 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:18.119 I want to say about the sort of embarrassment of 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.399 riches or a lot of abundance besides there being a 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:25.520 lot of options of cannabis based medicines, is there's something 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:28.640 really exciting happening in psychiatry now. You know, we've had 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:30.440 a lot of the same tools for a long time, 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.760 and some things are hard to treat, especially post traumatic 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:38.520 stress disorder. And what we're seeing now with m d 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:41.560 M A assisted therapy, which is better known as ecstasy 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:46.320 or molly or psilocybin assisted psychotherapy, as that psychiatry all 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.320 of a sudden has some new tools at our disposal. 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:53.919 Ketamine is another very sort of separate and controversial issue, 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.200 but at least people are getting used to this idea 0:17:56.240 --> 0:18:00.119 that they can have some sort of inexperience where they 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:05.760 can examine themselves more, maybe look at their childhood trauma process. 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:09.040 Some things come out of this altered state a little 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:10.840 bit better, a little bit less depressed, a little bit 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.000 less anxious. That's a new paradigm that's a completely different 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:17.000 way of thinking about these drugs. Uh. This idea of 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:21.840 psychedelic psychiatry brand new, pretty exciting, but something you've been 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:24.880 in love for a while, not new to me, right. 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:27.080 I want to talk about that. Be your beginnings in 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.159 terms of that and your beginnings in terms of psychiatry, 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:33.320 because as a psychiatrist, you're obviously a medical doctor, correct, 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:35.480 I am, Where did you go to medical school? I 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.960 went to University of Pennsylvania. Undergrad, I went to Temple 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.000 for med school, so I stayed in Philadelphia, and then 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:43.800 I went to New York City and I did my 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.120 psychiatric residency at Mount Sinai Hospital, and then I spent 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:51.720 nine years running the psychiatric emergency room every Saturday night 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:53.639 and Sunday night, which was kind of a rock and 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.040 roll psychiatry job. It was the e R at Bellevue Hospital, 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.040 the psyche r. So after those nine years, I a 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.040 book call weekends at Bellevue about my time there. But 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:05.879 because I had grown up in the seventies and a 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:10.000 suburb full of interesting drugs to try. And then when 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:12.879 I was an undergrad, I started learning about this m 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:15.760 d M a assisted psychotherapy, which I was very interested 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:19.000 in because when I was at Penn, all of a sudden, 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.119 I was reading about and hearing about a new drug, 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:25.480 and like you know, when you're studying psychopharmacology at at 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.359 undergrad and there's a new drug that's a that's a 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.520 big summer for you. So I got very interested in 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:33.880 m d m A and I wrote a big paper 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:36.000 about it because I was at a summer school class 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:38.880 I was taking um. That turned into the Ecstasy Book, 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.760 and that was my first book. I assigned chapters to 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:45.040 every expert um on every different facet of M d 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:47.120 m A. And then a few years later I ended 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:49.080 up doing that with the Pop Book also, So those 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:51.320 are actually two books that I edited. I wrote some 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:53.520 of it, but not all of it. I knew I 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:55.840 was going to be a psychiatrist from a pretty young 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:57.600 I mean I knew I wanted to do something with 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:02.080 the brain, well, knowing that psychiatry involves a far greater 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:05.440 commitment academically because of the medical degree than of being 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:09.320 a psychologist or a social something related. What's the impulse 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:12.199 to psychiatry in the young woman from your background? Like, 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:14.520 when did you know you wanted to do this? And 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:17.600 put in all that time I wanted to be a 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:20.439 doctor from a pretty young age. I mean, you know, 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:22.919 I was definitely the kind of person who played doctor, 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.199 you know, wrapped people up in bandages. I mean I 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:29.080 I am. I was a smart kid, was very interested 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:32.680 in drugs, very interested in the brain. Um pretty sure 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:34.520 I was going to be either like a neurologist or 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:38.000 nursergon or psychiatrist before I even went to undergrad Like, 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:40.840 I chose pen because they had a major called the 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:43.920 Biological Basis of Behavior. It was all about the brain 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:47.560 and psycho farm. I had a subscription of psychology today. 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:49.479 When I was in high school, Like, I was one 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:52.520 of those kids who just kind of I like this, 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:55.320 and what did your parents do? My mom was a 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:59.280 science teacher, and my dad is a structural engineer, very analytical. 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.640 I was interested in science, and I was very analytical. 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:05.080 And and I grew up in the seventies where just 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:07.679