Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today is psychiatrist
Speaker 1: Julie Holland. She has a private practice in New York
Speaker 1: City and is the author of several books, including the
Speaker 1: New York Times bestseller Moody Bitches at a Memoir Weekends
Speaker 1: at Bellevue. For decades, she's been researching the use of
Speaker 1: psychedelics to treat mental health issues, with a particular focus
Speaker 1: on using M D m A and cannabis to treat
Speaker 1: post traumatic stress disorder. Many people are struggling with their
Speaker 1: mental health in this long period of social distancing, but
Speaker 1: Holland says, even before the trauma this pandemic has caused,
Speaker 1: we were not doing that well mentally. I've been doing
Speaker 1: phone sessions from up here in Duchess County, UM, and
Speaker 1: some of my patients are still in the city, but
Speaker 1: a lot of my patients have sort of flown the
Speaker 1: coup to places where there's a lower density of people,
Speaker 1: but importantly places where there's more nature and they're getting outside. Um,
Speaker 1: they're getting more sun, more nature, and that I think
Speaker 1: for me, it's been a real bomb and one of
Speaker 1: the things that's helped me feel balanced or saying, you know,
Speaker 1: a good antidote sort of to how toxic the news
Speaker 1: is and everything that's happening is if I go out
Speaker 1: into the woods or the swamp or the lake, and
Speaker 1: I really feel much much calmer. You know, we can
Speaker 1: discuss what the snapshot is and what the health of
Speaker 1: the country is and beyond during the COVID, but to
Speaker 1: whatever extent you're willing to venture an opinion, what was
Speaker 1: the mental health of the country like prior to the
Speaker 1: Cobb Oh? Yes, well, you know, we actually had a
Speaker 1: couple of big epidemics before this pandemic, right. We had
Speaker 1: the overdose epidemic. We had more and more people, uh,
Speaker 1: not only dying of opiate overdoses or accidental overdoses, but
Speaker 1: also more people drinking themselves to death. And we also
Speaker 1: had what was called the epidemic of loneliness, where we
Speaker 1: had more and more people living alone. Everybody had gotten
Speaker 1: into their own little pod even prior to this pandemic,
Speaker 1: but we were not happier because of it. I mean,
Speaker 1: all the isolation. People felt very lonely, which makes people
Speaker 1: feel both depressed and anxious. I would love to talk
Speaker 1: more about why social isolation makes us so anxious. You
Speaker 1: point out that there are strains in our society beyond
Speaker 1: the COVID, the predate the COVID, and I want to
Speaker 1: get to later on when people are isolated COVID or no,
Speaker 1: and when people are feeling an abundance of distress, are
Speaker 1: the cures, healthcare, guaranteed income ways to address I mean,
Speaker 1: it seems that people are lonely, they can't afford healthcare,
Speaker 1: they can't afford food, and they don't have a job.
Speaker 1: The constant fear of the future. Right, So it's impossible
Speaker 1: for me to talk about depression anxiety without talking about
Speaker 1: politics and health policy and social policy. They're so intertwined.
Speaker 1: And you were asking, you know, before the pandemic, how
Speaker 1: were we doing, and I was saying, we really weren't
Speaker 1: doing very well. You know, whenever there's sort of gross inequality,
Speaker 1: a lot of people aren't going to do well. And
Speaker 1: it's not just that they have more physical problems, but
Speaker 1: they have more mental health problems. And addiction is a
Speaker 1: sign of unrest and on wellness. It's not really a
Speaker 1: thing in and of itself, it's a symptom of something bigger.
Speaker 1: So the fact that we had more and more people
Speaker 1: addicted to opiates and and overdosing. I mean, there was
Speaker 1: a glut and there, you know, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of money being made and making the drug and distributing
Speaker 1: the drug. But you know, gobormates is this great thing
Speaker 1: which is don't ask why the addiction, asked why the pain.
Speaker 1: We were in pain. People were in pain before the pandemic.
Speaker 1: You know, nine eleven was very tough on the inhabitants
Speaker 1: of New York City, and people got very anxious and
Speaker 1: started paying more attention to political issues. And then, honestly,
Speaker 1: you know, after Donald got elected, you know, everybody in
Speaker 1: the town who knew him and knew who he was
Speaker 1: and what he was made of, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of despair and and anxiety. And you know, the type
Speaker 1: of people who come to see a private psychiatrist I
Speaker 1: think tend to lean left, honestly, so I definitely have
Speaker 1: a bias sample. But my patients were really not only
Speaker 1: afraid for the country and for our democracy, but also
Speaker 1: for the planet. You know, there's this sort of background
Speaker 1: app that's always running, whether we know it or not,
Speaker 1: which is that we are in sort of mourning for
Speaker 1: what's happening to the planet, and there's a deep level
Speaker 1: of despair. And the more disconnected we are from ourselves,
Speaker 1: from our friends, from each other, from the planet, the
Speaker 1: worse we feel. The more depressed we are, the more
Speaker 1: anxious we are. So it's been going on, and I
Speaker 1: would add to that, we're moving further and further and
Speaker 1: further away from a connection between the will of the
Speaker 1: people and what the government's going to do. The government
Speaker 1: operates completely independent of the will of the people, right,
Speaker 1: and they do whatever they want to do. They just
Speaker 1: ignore what mainstream thought is about. But the end result
Speaker 1: for we the people is that we get despairing and
Speaker 1: depressed because we're powerless. Right, It doesn't matter what they want, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the popular vote doesn't matter. This
Speaker 1: sense of powerlessness is a setup for depression. Right. This
Speaker 1: is your fifth book with a book like this comes
Speaker 1: along once that process, Like how did this book start
Speaker 1: to germinate with you? This book started to germinate while
Speaker 1: I was stand up paddling on a lake and there
Speaker 1: was mist. There was all this mist coming out of
Speaker 1: the lake, and I wanted to be in the midst.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be enveloped in the mist, and I
Speaker 1: was paddling out to where the mist was, but wherever
Speaker 1: I went, it seemed like the mist wasn't there anymore,
Speaker 1: and it was somewhere else. And I would paddle somewhere
Speaker 1: else where it looked like the mist was thick, and
Speaker 1: then it wasn't there. And the thing I finally realized
Speaker 1: is you're in the mist. The mist is all around you.
Speaker 1: It's just that because of the light, you can't see it,
Speaker 1: but it's there. And it was, you know, the sort
Speaker 1: of epiphany to me that you know, we're always chase
Speaker 1: sing for things, and really the things that we want
Speaker 1: were the really right in our backyard. And you know,
Speaker 1: while that ended up not being the main message of
Speaker 1: good chemistry, it is definitely a message for me now
Speaker 1: and for my patients now that you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of people were spinning their wheels and running around and
Speaker 1: now that they're sort of stuck in place, it turns
Speaker 1: out that they do have a lot of things that
Speaker 1: they need and that it's been good to sort of
Speaker 1: hunker down and go inward or be with family. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a cocooning period. One. Yeah, in the beginning, everybody
Speaker 1: was like if I just knew when this would end,
Speaker 1: I would be okay, you know, if I knew it
Speaker 1: was just for the summer or you know, I mean
Speaker 1: when it started, it was like when if I know
Speaker 1: it was just April, right, But that was a big deal.
Speaker 1: For the first few months with my patients, was just
Speaker 1: this idea that they needed to be able to encapsulate it.
Speaker 1: You know, if it could be compartmentalized, then they could
Speaker 1: deal with it. But this idea that you don't know
Speaker 1: how long it's going to go on. The thing, obviously,
Speaker 1: Michael Turn is about my children. I mean my children.
Speaker 1: I want their social skill ills to mature, and I
Speaker 1: want them and they're growing so quickly. My daughter who's
Speaker 1: seven now, I mean she's like Lillian Hellman, you know,
Speaker 1: the stuff that comes out of her mouth now, which
Speaker 1: is kind of amazing. She's so sharp and so clever
Speaker 1: and so and I want, I don't want their development,
Speaker 1: which prior to this we were kind of thrilled by.
Speaker 1: And I'm just really just chattered and I'm in a
Speaker 1: lot of pain that I'm suffering about how although there's
Speaker 1: some beautiful unintended consequences where they found each other and
Speaker 1: they only have each other. So the bonding and the
Speaker 1: relationships between them have become so profound. But my kids,
Speaker 1: like when you have a five year old boy turned
Speaker 1: to you the other and he goes, I missed New York.
Speaker 1: You know, he said, I missed New York, and I'm
Speaker 1: not thought to myself. You know, it sounds like Steve
Speaker 1: Rupel in prison. You know what I mean. I missed
Speaker 1: New York. I missed Studio fifty four. You know, my
Speaker 1: son's five, and he's like, I missed you. I'm going,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, tore me apart apart. You know. In
Speaker 1: my dealing my patients, sometimes I'm talking to a parent
Speaker 1: who's very worried about their kid and whether their kids
Speaker 1: going to go in or or go virtually. Um. I
Speaker 1: also have some patients who are teachers who are really
Speaker 1: worried about the kids. And and you know, everybody has
Speaker 1: a different opinion about what should happen. Everybody has the
Speaker 1: same fears. Everybody wants what's best for the kids. But
Speaker 1: it really is a no win situation. You know. It's
Speaker 1: just like everybody gets the misery spread sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Nobody really gets exactly what they want, you know, certainly
Speaker 1: with hybrid it's for my teachers. It's like the worst
Speaker 1: of both worlds. But the thing about our kids is,
Speaker 1: you know, we know what they're missing. You know, my
Speaker 1: son didn't get to be a c I T at camp,
Speaker 1: or uh, you know, didn't get to play drums in
Speaker 1: the in the high school musical, or somebody didn't get
Speaker 1: to go to the prom. Like, we know what those
Speaker 1: things are and we know what they're missing. But the
Speaker 1: kids themselves who haven't they don't know what they're missing,
Speaker 1: they haven't gone through it. I think it's actually easier
Speaker 1: on them. I mean, I'm not saying it's easy on
Speaker 1: the kids. I know, and more kids are being diagnosed
Speaker 1: with anxiety and being treated with the antiangs I d
Speaker 1: meads right now than ever before. So no, it's not
Speaker 1: easy on them. But sometimes I think that, you know
Speaker 1: what we wish for them, it's this extra layer of
Speaker 1: mourning or anxiety that maybe they don't even really have.
Speaker 1: I mean, they are more resilient, certainly. I've told this
Speaker 1: story before, I think on this podcast, so I'll do
Speaker 1: the distilled version of my friend who lived in Italy.
Speaker 1: He was British originally and he was there for several years.
Speaker 1: And he came back and I said, when you came
Speaker 1: back after nine years in Italy, what's the changes you noticed?
Speaker 1: He said. One thing I don't like of these applications
Speaker 1: that these people have for dating and meeting. He said.
Speaker 1: The other thing I hate is ways, because sometimes getting
Speaker 1: lost it's the greatest thing that could happen to You
Speaker 1: might get lost and go somebody to get directions, and
Speaker 1: when you go to the gas station you meet your
Speaker 1: wife of the cash register, right, And he said, we've
Speaker 1: taken all the serendipity out of out of the world.
Speaker 1: Now do you find that people are leading on apps, devices,
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff social media more than ever now? Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know when when I wrote Good Chemistry, it was
Speaker 1: before COVID, but I was already saying, you know, put
Speaker 1: down your phone. You have to go out and see
Speaker 1: people in real space. First of all, you know, anybody's
Speaker 1: profile picture, like maybe it's them, maybe it's them on
Speaker 1: their best day, or maybe it's some photoshopic not even
Speaker 1: be them. I mean you just you just don't know.
Speaker 1: And also it's not you know how tall somebody is
Speaker 1: or how they look three dimentially, it's really is also
Speaker 1: how people smell. And this is something I explained in
Speaker 1: Moody Bitches that we actually mate to some degree. You know,
Speaker 1: Pheromone detection is a real thing, and it helps us
Speaker 1: figure out not only whether we like the way someone smells,
Speaker 1: but whether they would be a good physiological match for
Speaker 1: us on a genetic level. You know, if you're immune
Speaker 1: to five things and somebody else is immune to five things,
Speaker 1: if you have a kid, it's possible that kid will
Speaker 1: be immune to all ten things. So you want somebody
Speaker 1: who's a little bit genetically dissimilar to you. And one
Speaker 1: of the ways that the body figures that out for
Speaker 1: mating is through smell, So you know, until there's like
Speaker 1: a scratch and sniff app I think that people are
Speaker 1: going to have to really you know, it's good to
Speaker 1: get together before you know, I just tell people to
Speaker 1: I mean before COVID, I was like just you know,
Speaker 1: meet for a coffee or whatever. But you can get
Speaker 1: so delusional about who you're texting or you know, if
Speaker 1: they happen to spell the way that you think, you know,
Speaker 1: if you care about spelling or uh, you know it's political,
Speaker 1: but like you know, they you really it's not just
Speaker 1: about how they spell and it is. You know, there
Speaker 1: are such things as like auras and energies and you know,
Speaker 1: souls and spiritual things like that. And you know, I
Speaker 1: know psychiatrists aren't supposed to say any of those words,
Speaker 1: but I think they're real, and I think that you know,
Speaker 1: intuition is a real thing. You know, your gut reaction
Speaker 1: to somebody, you're not gonna get. You just gonna project
Speaker 1: all of your own things onto something because you don't
Speaker 1: have enough information. Back to the book, which is that
Speaker 1: so the mist is everywhere and you're pandling yourself towards
Speaker 1: the mist that it's there. But what did you want
Speaker 1: to cover in this book? What did you want? What experience?
Speaker 1: What people have when they read the book. Well, the
Speaker 1: book is really about how important it is for us
Speaker 1: to connect and sort of the physical aspects of connection,
Speaker 1: the physiology why our bodies are designed so that if
Speaker 1: we feel connected, we are soothed, and if we feel disconnected,
Speaker 1: we get kind of agitated and anxious or depressed. So
Speaker 1: it's about these very basic ideas of connecting with the self,
Speaker 1: being in your body, being present in the moment. Right.
Speaker 1: So the way good chemistry is set up. The first
Speaker 1: chapter is about connection with the self. The second chapter
Speaker 1: is about connecting with another person and all about pheromones
Speaker 1: and sex and orgasm and all that fun stuff. The
Speaker 1: third chapters about family and how those connections work from
Speaker 1: a physiological point of view. Right, So I start talking
Speaker 1: a lot about oxytocin, which is a hormone that's involved
Speaker 1: in pregnancy, nursing, delivery, and again, and it's very high
Speaker 1: oxytose and state for orgasm. Then after self coupled Family,
Speaker 1: there's a chapter in society where I talk about how
Speaker 1: communities connect and what the physiology is of that, and
Speaker 1: how oxytocin plays a role in us versus them. Right,
Speaker 1: if you think, oh, you're on my you know you're
Speaker 1: in my tribe, you're my people. But that guy over there,
Speaker 1: you know he's them, that's an oxytocin effect. Also, then
Speaker 1: there's a chapter on connecting with nature and about sort
Speaker 1: of ecological activism versus this. You know, feeling despair, you
Speaker 1: know that action will help you feel better, Plus it's
Speaker 1: better for the planet. Then the last chapter is about
Speaker 1: connecting with the cosmos, or perhaps if you're fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to have had a psychedelic experience and you've had a
Speaker 1: peak experience. You have this sense of everything is connected.
Speaker 1: You know, it all makes sense, it's all connected, and
Speaker 1: I'm part of that, and that is a peak mystical experience.
Speaker 1: It is also a high oxytocin experience. So the book
Speaker 1: is about oxytocin as sort of the the hormone or
Speaker 1: the neuro transmitter that underlies all these feelings of connection.
Speaker 1: They make us feel safe, like we belong. And oxytocin
Speaker 1: is an antidepressant. It can be used to treat drug addiction,
Speaker 1: and it coincidentally, there's some drugs that make you feel
Speaker 1: safe and like you belong, and that's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why we use them. Psychiatrist Julie Holland. If it's
Speaker 1: connection you're seeking, subscribe to Here's the Thing on the
Speaker 1: I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. If Dr Holland's research into psychedelics to treat
Speaker 1: mental illness has piqued your interest, be sure to check
Speaker 1: out the Here's the Thing archives. At my conversation with
Speaker 1: author Michael Pollen, I started looking at that really interesting
Speaker 1: question is why is the species? Do we want to
Speaker 1: change our consciousness? I mean, it's not adaptive, right, It
Speaker 1: puts you at all sorts of risk. But we have
Speaker 1: this desire and in fact, many animals have it too,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a mystery, which which animals have
Speaker 1: a desire to. Elephants love to get drunk, and you
Speaker 1: can imagine how much it takes. You can hear the
Speaker 1: rest of my conversation with Michael Pollen at Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing dot Org after the Break. Psychiatrist Julie Holland explains
Speaker 1: why she's dedicated her life to understanding how our brains
Speaker 1: are wired. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing. Dr Julie Holland says she's hearing from a
Speaker 1: lot of people who are self medicating their way through
Speaker 1: the pandemic. I'm thirty five years sober in a twelve
Speaker 1: step program, and I'm always mindful of, you know, the
Speaker 1: substitutive nature. You know what else did I put in
Speaker 1: their food? Sex, money, power, workaholism, love, addiction, whatever. I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if you have seen that with your patients as well.
Speaker 1: We're during lockdown. I don't want to use the word abuse,
Speaker 1: but you know, medicating themselves with food pornography. Yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: all of it. Yeah, at the same time, well, you
Speaker 1: can multitask with you know, two computers, I guess in theory, um,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's a lot there to unpack, you know.
Speaker 1: We there are all sorts of ways that people soothed themselves.
Speaker 1: I think one thing to keep in mind is that
Speaker 1: the way most of us were taught. The earliest ways
Speaker 1: we were soothed were orally right, somebody stuck a past
Speaker 1: fire in your mouth, or a bottle, or if you're lucky,
Speaker 1: you got a nipple and abreast and a person holding you.
Speaker 1: But still there were times when that wasn't available. You
Speaker 1: learn to suck your thumb or bite your nails. You
Speaker 1: start eating, maybe if you're a woman growing up in
Speaker 1: the United States America, whenever you eat, you feel guilty,
Speaker 1: and then you end up soothing that agitated guilty state
Speaker 1: with more food. So the COVID nineteen like people gaining
Speaker 1: nineteen pounds during the quarantine, is a real phenomenon for
Speaker 1: my patients. The quarantine e has taken on a life
Speaker 1: of its own. I definitely patients who are smoking more
Speaker 1: pot um, you know, I thought it was fascinating that
Speaker 1: cannabis went from being you know, Schedule one illegal drug
Speaker 1: to like essential during the pandemic. That was like, okay,
Speaker 1: that's pretty interesting. Moon. And you know, the other thing
Speaker 1: I want to say about the sort of embarrassment of
Speaker 1: riches or a lot of abundance besides there being a
Speaker 1: lot of options of cannabis based medicines, is there's something
Speaker 1: really exciting happening in psychiatry now. You know, we've had
Speaker 1: a lot of the same tools for a long time,
Speaker 1: and some things are hard to treat, especially post traumatic
Speaker 1: stress disorder. And what we're seeing now with m d
Speaker 1: M A assisted therapy, which is better known as ecstasy
Speaker 1: or molly or psilocybin assisted psychotherapy, as that psychiatry all
Speaker 1: of a sudden has some new tools at our disposal.
Speaker 1: Ketamine is another very sort of separate and controversial issue,
Speaker 1: but at least people are getting used to this idea
Speaker 1: that they can have some sort of inexperience where they
Speaker 1: can examine themselves more, maybe look at their childhood trauma process.
Speaker 1: Some things come out of this altered state a little
Speaker 1: bit better, a little bit less depressed, a little bit
Speaker 1: less anxious. That's a new paradigm that's a completely different
Speaker 1: way of thinking about these drugs. Uh. This idea of
Speaker 1: psychedelic psychiatry brand new, pretty exciting, but something you've been
Speaker 1: in love for a while, not new to me, right.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about that. Be your beginnings in
Speaker 1: terms of that and your beginnings in terms of psychiatry,
Speaker 1: because as a psychiatrist, you're obviously a medical doctor, correct,
Speaker 1: I am, Where did you go to medical school? I
Speaker 1: went to University of Pennsylvania. Undergrad, I went to Temple
Speaker 1: for med school, so I stayed in Philadelphia, and then
Speaker 1: I went to New York City and I did my
Speaker 1: psychiatric residency at Mount Sinai Hospital, and then I spent
Speaker 1: nine years running the psychiatric emergency room every Saturday night
Speaker 1: and Sunday night, which was kind of a rock and
Speaker 1: roll psychiatry job. It was the e R at Bellevue Hospital,
Speaker 1: the psyche r. So after those nine years, I a
Speaker 1: book call weekends at Bellevue about my time there. But
Speaker 1: because I had grown up in the seventies and a
Speaker 1: suburb full of interesting drugs to try. And then when
Speaker 1: I was an undergrad, I started learning about this m
Speaker 1: d M a assisted psychotherapy, which I was very interested
Speaker 1: in because when I was at Penn, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I was reading about and hearing about a new drug,
Speaker 1: and like you know, when you're studying psychopharmacology at at
Speaker 1: undergrad and there's a new drug that's a that's a
Speaker 1: big summer for you. So I got very interested in
Speaker 1: m d m A and I wrote a big paper
Speaker 1: about it because I was at a summer school class
Speaker 1: I was taking um. That turned into the Ecstasy Book,
Speaker 1: and that was my first book. I assigned chapters to
Speaker 1: every expert um on every different facet of M d
Speaker 1: m A. And then a few years later I ended
Speaker 1: up doing that with the Pop Book also, So those
Speaker 1: are actually two books that I edited. I wrote some
Speaker 1: of it, but not all of it. I knew I
Speaker 1: was going to be a psychiatrist from a pretty young
Speaker 1: I mean I knew I wanted to do something with
Speaker 1: the brain, well, knowing that psychiatry involves a far greater
Speaker 1: commitment academically because of the medical degree than of being
Speaker 1: a psychologist or a social something related. What's the impulse
Speaker 1: to psychiatry in the young woman from your background? Like,
Speaker 1: when did you know you wanted to do this? And
Speaker 1: put in all that time I wanted to be a
Speaker 1: doctor from a pretty young age. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I was definitely the kind of person who played doctor,
Speaker 1: you know, wrapped people up in bandages. I mean I
Speaker 1: I am. I was a smart kid, was very interested
Speaker 1: in drugs, very interested in the brain. Um pretty sure
Speaker 1: I was going to be either like a neurologist or
Speaker 1: nursergon or psychiatrist before I even went to undergrad Like,
Speaker 1: I chose pen because they had a major called the
Speaker 1: Biological Basis of Behavior. It was all about the brain
Speaker 1: and psycho farm. I had a subscription of psychology today.
Speaker 1: When I was in high school, Like, I was one
Speaker 1: of those kids who just kind of I like this,
Speaker 1: and what did your parents do? My mom was a
Speaker 1: science teacher, and my dad is a structural engineer, very analytical.
Speaker 1: I was interested in science, and I was very analytical.
Speaker 1: And and I grew up in the seventies where just
Speaker 1: drugs were all around me, and I was fascinated that
Speaker 1: a little piece of paper could make you, you know,
Speaker 1: see the world in a completely different way. And how
Speaker 1: would you distinguish for people who don't have that much
Speaker 1: of an intimacy with certain kinds of pharmaceuticals? And a
Speaker 1: certain kind of drugs. Like for me when I was
Speaker 1: growing up and I was in my you know, riding
Speaker 1: the range out there in my drug and alcohol phase. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, cocaine was the king. But for people who
Speaker 1: don't know about ecstasy and psilocybin, you feel there are
Speaker 1: benefits to either or both, Why what did they achieve
Speaker 1: in terms of therapy? So here's what I would say
Speaker 1: about m DMA and psilocybin in terms of psychiatry. I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, the thing to keep in mind is,
Speaker 1: right now, these are still research chemicals. They're not legal.
Speaker 1: People can't prescribe them, but they are both going through
Speaker 1: an FDA approval process so that they will be prescribable
Speaker 1: in the context of their rapy. Right. So this is
Speaker 1: not you know, buying a tablet of ecstasy or some
Speaker 1: white powder that somebody tells you as molly and being
Speaker 1: on a dance floor and getting overheated or overhydrated, and
Speaker 1: those things are seriously dangerous. Also you just don't know
Speaker 1: what you're getting. This is in the context of that
Speaker 1: you're lying on a couch with a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: milligrams or maybe even only eighty milligrams, which is pretty
Speaker 1: low dose of pure m d m A. You're not
Speaker 1: dancing for hours, you're not overhydrating, so the medical risks
Speaker 1: in that situation are pretty minimal, which is why the
Speaker 1: FDA is allowed these studies to go ahead. Right now,
Speaker 1: there are multi center trials going on with m d
Speaker 1: m A assisted psychotherapy sessions all over America and a
Speaker 1: few other countries, and psilocybin assisted psychotherapy research is happening
Speaker 1: in America and all over Europe and given to who
Speaker 1: for what, so for Some of the psilocybin studies are
Speaker 1: for treatment resistant depression and some of them are just
Speaker 1: for regular major depression. The m d m A studies
Speaker 1: are looking at pos traumatic stress disorder. There's also one
Speaker 1: m d m A study where they looked at social
Speaker 1: anxiety in adults on the autistic spectrum. For people who
Speaker 1: don't know anything about ecstasy or molly or what, you know,
Speaker 1: this is methylene dioxy meth emphetamine m d m A.
Speaker 1: So the methymphetamine part may sound familiar to you. It's
Speaker 1: sort of a cousin of speed, but it has a
Speaker 1: more of a psychedelic component to it, So what you
Speaker 1: end up with is something that increases your serotonin massively,
Speaker 1: so you're very relaxed and you feel sort of satiated,
Speaker 1: like you don't need anything. It also increases your dopamine
Speaker 1: because of the methymphetamine base, so you are awake, alert,
Speaker 1: you have very good recall for the event. You want
Speaker 1: to talk, you want to dig, you want to conn.
Speaker 1: But there's one more very important part of m d
Speaker 1: m A as it increases oxytocin, so you have that
Speaker 1: sense of safety and connection, like you belong, and so
Speaker 1: you end up with this sort of you're calm, but
Speaker 1: you're open, right, So the openness like open to bonding,
Speaker 1: open to trusting, open to looking at your ship. You know,
Speaker 1: it's almost like anesthesia with or without surgery. Like when
Speaker 1: you go to therapy. You get to a certain point
Speaker 1: where you're like, oh no, that hurts that bad stuff
Speaker 1: happened there. That's too tender. I don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about it. And the therapist says, okay, maybe next week
Speaker 1: we will. But then maybe you cancel and you don't
Speaker 1: see her. You know, it fits and starts. It takes
Speaker 1: a long time for therapy. This is one or two
Speaker 1: sessions where you feel comfortable enough and trusting enough, but
Speaker 1: awake and alert enough that you can really do some digging.
Speaker 1: So it is like a catalyst for therapy. So that's
Speaker 1: M D M A and psilocybin is different. It's something
Speaker 1: really different. Well, right, so it's you you have a
Speaker 1: mystical psychedelic experience. Maybe you're in a void which is scary.
Speaker 1: Maybe you are in that place where I said, like
Speaker 1: where you feel like everything is connected in your bathe
Speaker 1: with love. But what happens reliably and people when you
Speaker 1: give them psilocybin is you can do some mystical experience.
Speaker 1: And when you have that sense of everything is connected
Speaker 1: and love is the answer that when you have that
Speaker 1: sort of big experience, it can lead to a lot
Speaker 1: of behavioral changes. And also there's something called neuroplasticity, which
Speaker 1: is the brain rewiring itself. I'm up for that. I
Speaker 1: need that, right. So there's some psychedelics that cause neurons
Speaker 1: to grow or synapsis to grow. You get neurogenesis or
Speaker 1: synapter genesis. This means you're getting new brain cells, new connections.
Speaker 1: So not the frying pan and the egg that we
Speaker 1: are exposed to in the eighties, Like this is you know,
Speaker 1: this is drugs. This is your brain on drugs. It
Speaker 1: really for these particular drugs, it is quite the opposite
Speaker 1: where you've got new brain cells, it's not killing brain cells,
Speaker 1: and you've got new connections, a little bit of rewiring.
Speaker 1: But do you do some predictive kind of work, like
Speaker 1: for example, you say to me hallucinogenics like psilocybin, and
Speaker 1: I think to myself, I'm sitting on my couch and
Speaker 1: I take this pill and all of a sudden, I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm paddle boarding into the mist on a
Speaker 1: lake and upstatement, you are going to have left my couch,
Speaker 1: right do you do? You do you do predictive things
Speaker 1: with them before you give them the drug before because
Speaker 1: because some people might have a negative reaction to it.
Speaker 1: Not okay, so quite so. The most important thing I
Speaker 1: can tell you is it because this is just research. Now,
Speaker 1: people are screened like you and believe, very heavily screamed. Right,
Speaker 1: So if you have a history of psychosis, if you
Speaker 1: have a family history of psychosis, you're not going to
Speaker 1: be on that couch. But you know, I actually don't
Speaker 1: say hallucinogen because it's it's not like you see pink
Speaker 1: elephants that aren't there. I mean, you know with with SILSA,
Speaker 1: I mean you may have visions, but you kind of
Speaker 1: know their visions. You know, you don't start interacting with
Speaker 1: things that aren't there. But their mind manifesting medicines, their
Speaker 1: consciousness medicines. And I would say, Alec that these are
Speaker 1: disruptive medicines and psychiatry. This is a disruptive paradigm making
Speaker 1: therapy go deeper and faster and getting people to turn
Speaker 1: away from instead of taking a daily dose of antidepressants
Speaker 1: or anti anxiety meds, they're having single sessions or maybe
Speaker 1: two or three sessions over half a year or a year,
Speaker 1: but they don't need the daily dose afterwards. And in
Speaker 1: the m d M A PTSD studies, they're not meeting
Speaker 1: criteria for PTSD at the end of the study. When
Speaker 1: did you ascertain that you had developed the ability to
Speaker 1: know when you were taking drugs and you were self
Speaker 1: medicating in a recreational way, and when you were taking
Speaker 1: drugs and it was part of your scientific research, Meaning
Speaker 1: when did you sidestep the Dr Checkl and Mr Hyde
Speaker 1: steven sony and a chapter of your life there? Well,
Speaker 1: I would say for many people who use drugs. It
Speaker 1: is a daily calibration and a daily question and an
Speaker 1: important question to be conscious of. What is your relationship
Speaker 1: with this drug? When are you using it, How are
Speaker 1: you using it, Why are you using it? Is it
Speaker 1: interfering with other things that need to happen? But you know,
Speaker 1: I think these are hard questions. Did you come to
Speaker 1: that point yourself when you were younger where you said
Speaker 1: there are things you were doing that that you thought
Speaker 1: you thought as if this isn't helping me, right? Sure?
Speaker 1: I mean I I smoked cigarettes for years and years
Speaker 1: and years before stopping, and that was something I'm a singer,
Speaker 1: so I knew that that was just stupid to do. Um,
Speaker 1: but it was really hard. And I quit cigarettes twice
Speaker 1: for two years and started up again twice, and I
Speaker 1: was amazed. Um, I knew I could quit, so I
Speaker 1: knew I could start up again. And the kind of
Speaker 1: rationalizations you make when you started up again. I know
Speaker 1: you grew up with brothers. I grew up with sisters,
Speaker 1: but I'm I'm the youngest of three, and you know
Speaker 1: I was I wanted to do what their friends were doing.
Speaker 1: So when I was eight, I had my first beer.
Speaker 1: When I was ten, I had my first cigarette. When
Speaker 1: I was twelve, I have my first cannabis, and when
Speaker 1: I was fourteen, I have my first psychedelic. So very young, yes, precocious,
Speaker 1: but always taking notes, learn learning, going to the library.
Speaker 1: You know, we didn't have the internet back then. You
Speaker 1: want to learn something, you had an encyclopedia, or you
Speaker 1: asked your mom to drive you the library. But I
Speaker 1: would do like any time I had to do a report,
Speaker 1: you know, I would be doing it on the brain
Speaker 1: or on the Smoking thing was the thing you did
Speaker 1: when you were very young. It wasn't like five years
Speaker 1: ago your husband catches you in the bat in the
Speaker 1: in the garage smoking out there in the country. So
Speaker 1: I mean, thank goodness. I quit smoking right before I
Speaker 1: met Jeremy. And it's a good thing I did, because
Speaker 1: I don't think you would have spoken to me if
Speaker 1: I had a cigarette in my hand. So I quit
Speaker 1: when I was twenty nine. But I smoked, you know,
Speaker 1: steady from like fifteen to twenty nine, and not so
Speaker 1: much steady from ten to fifteen. But still I would
Speaker 1: like bumb cigarettes from people. And it was like, look
Speaker 1: at this cute little kid bone a cigarette. That's so cute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've got a handful of friends who are formally
Speaker 1: getting divorced now. Of course, the groundwork was laid prior
Speaker 1: to the COVID, but the COVID has certainly pushed everybody
Speaker 1: over the edge. They filed for divorce, They're getting divorced.
Speaker 1: Not a discussion anymore, They've moved on. I was gonna
Speaker 1: mention before when I said that people are falling back
Speaker 1: on and relying on different things to medicate themselves, like
Speaker 1: food and media and social media and TV watching and pornography.
Speaker 1: I thought, you win a house, and you're just as likely,
Speaker 1: maybe not more likely, but just as likely to go
Speaker 1: in the bathroom with a computer and have online sex,
Speaker 1: you know, and watch porn than you actually have sex
Speaker 1: with your partner in your house because the two of
Speaker 1: you are so sick of each other, like like normally
Speaker 1: there is there is there like a spike in the
Speaker 1: birthrate after a lockdown, And are we not going to
Speaker 1: see the spike in the birthrate from this because everyone's
Speaker 1: in the bathroom doing their own thing. Now, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: then connecting with that person a couple of things there,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I actually I wrote about masturbating
Speaker 1: to porn quite a bit in moody bitches, because you know,
Speaker 1: when you have an orgasm, you have an increase in
Speaker 1: oxytocin that makes you bond or trust or be open
Speaker 1: to the person who enabled that orgasm. But if you're
Speaker 1: doing that with your laptop, are you bonding with your
Speaker 1: laptop every time? So maybe? But the other thing I
Speaker 1: will say is that I definitely have patients who have
Speaker 1: left their husbands or left their partners during these past
Speaker 1: six months. There's no question this has been like a
Speaker 1: crucible where you're like, oh my gosh, we're in the
Speaker 1: best place we've ever been in or yeah, no, that's over.
Speaker 1: So um. There's not much middle ground here. And when
Speaker 1: this ends, if it ends how it ends, there is
Speaker 1: going to be post traumatic stress disorder. I think that's
Speaker 1: pretty clear. You know, we are currently being chronically stressed,
Speaker 1: and so in theory, once the chronic stress is over,
Speaker 1: then you have the post traumatic stress disorder. You know,
Speaker 1: people who have PTSD. From nine eleven, It was a
Speaker 1: terrible day in New York City, but it was one
Speaker 1: day and then it was over. Psychiatrist Julie Holland. When
Speaker 1: we return Julie Holland talks about why the pandemic is
Speaker 1: particularly challenging for already anxious kids. I'm Alec Baldwin, and
Speaker 1: this is here's the thing. I wanted to understand why
Speaker 1: someone starts seeing a psychiatrist. So usually if somebody comes
Speaker 1: to me, it's because they're already in therapy and their
Speaker 1: therapist is saying, I think you need to talk about medicines.
Speaker 1: I think medicines would help you. So they've already sort
Speaker 1: of gone past the threshold. It's not just like people
Speaker 1: are coming to me and saying, you know, I feel
Speaker 1: lousy and I don't know why, although I mean back
Speaker 1: in the nineties that was the case. The people were
Speaker 1: just I don't know what's the matter with me, and
Speaker 1: I would have to sort of hold their hand and
Speaker 1: convince them that, you know, maybe they ainty medicine. I
Speaker 1: don't have to do any kind of destigmatizing with medicine.
Speaker 1: Now everybody knows somebody who's taking antidepressants, anti anxiety meds,
Speaker 1: sleeping pills, they're everywhere, right, they're advertised. We you know,
Speaker 1: we're all sort of soaking in it. So I do
Speaker 1: think ever since nine eleven, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people got permission to medicate themselves, so when they come
Speaker 1: to you, it's beyond talk. So yeah, they're coming because
Speaker 1: they're wondering if they need medicines. They hit a wall,
Speaker 1: they need the medicine to get through that wall. They've
Speaker 1: definitely hit a wall. Or I have people coming to
Speaker 1: me who've been on medicines for years who want to
Speaker 1: get off, and that's something that I help people do.
Speaker 1: And it's really complicated to get off antidepressants when you
Speaker 1: been on them for decades, which unfortunately happens a lot.
Speaker 1: You know, these meds were really only studied to be
Speaker 1: used for six months or maybe twelve months, and in
Speaker 1: some people you have to take them long term. But
Speaker 1: almost everybody, they get on them and they stay on
Speaker 1: them because they do make it easier. You know, what
Speaker 1: I talk about in good chemistry is they don't necessarily
Speaker 1: give you more connections in your life. They just make
Speaker 1: you not mine that you're disconnected. That's my friend. My
Speaker 1: friend said that once. He said, I took drugs because
Speaker 1: I wanted to care less about my problems, he said,
Speaker 1: And I stopped dating taking drugs because I wanted to
Speaker 1: care again. I wanted to care again. And he said,
Speaker 1: and that that was the mechanism in which I can
Speaker 1: then move forward and start to care about what's happening
Speaker 1: to me, my loved once, my children, right and then
Speaker 1: and if you care, you can make changes. And you know,
Speaker 1: I definitely want to say for the twelve step programs
Speaker 1: that there is a lot of love in those rooms,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of connection in those rooms. And
Speaker 1: you walk in fit's your home meeting, and you're going
Speaker 1: again and again. There is that sense of belonging and
Speaker 1: safety and all of those things feeling connected, feeling safe,
Speaker 1: feeling like you belong to something bigger than you. Those
Speaker 1: are high oxytocin states that get you out of fight
Speaker 1: or flight and into this whole other paradigm for your body,
Speaker 1: which is called the parasympathetic nervous system. Right, So it's
Speaker 1: the opposite of the sympathetic nervous system. And good chemistry
Speaker 1: talks a lot about how to get yourself out of
Speaker 1: fight or flight and over into what you could call
Speaker 1: rest and digest or connect and protect, or tend and befriend.
Speaker 1: But it's it's the things that aren't fighting and running away.
Speaker 1: It's things like staying and negotiating and cooperating and collaborating.
Speaker 1: You know, all those things can't happen when we're in
Speaker 1: fight or flight. And if we're being traumatized, and if
Speaker 1: we're afraid of contagion, and if we have a sense
Speaker 1: of powerlessness, we're all going to be in fight or
Speaker 1: flight way too much of the time. Are you concerned?
Speaker 1: I mean, our research such as it is, you know
Speaker 1: my show, are producers that anti anxiety prescriptions for kids
Speaker 1: have on up significantly during the COVID. Does that concern you? Oh? Absolutely? Yeah.
Speaker 1: First of all, you know, over pathologizing women and children
Speaker 1: is really a reflection of the sort of patriarchal structure
Speaker 1: in medicine. But we you know, some people get sort
Speaker 1: of narcissistic about their kids, and their kids are like
Speaker 1: extensions of themselves, you know. And there is a little
Speaker 1: bit of a sort of a niche population in New
Speaker 1: York City where it's almost like you take pride if
Speaker 1: your kid is going to a psychiatrist, or your kids
Speaker 1: in therapy, or your kid has like special classes or something.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing. Are culture is pretty toxic right
Speaker 1: now and very anxiety producing right now, and it is
Speaker 1: normal to be anxious fear of contagion is a real thing,
Speaker 1: and it is normal to be afraid that you're gonna
Speaker 1: get sick, or that your parents are gonna get sick,
Speaker 1: or that your grandparents are gonna die. That's all normal anxiety.
Speaker 1: And then it's normal to be anxious if you don't
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen next month or next year,
Speaker 1: or whether you're going to be in class or at home,
Speaker 1: you know, or whether you're gonna be allowed to touch
Speaker 1: your friends or hug your friends or play sports. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many reasons we have right now for kids
Speaker 1: being anxious. All the rules have changed, right that everything
Speaker 1: they used to be able to do, they can't do anymore.
Speaker 1: And also wearing masks. And I'm not saying that we
Speaker 1: shouldn't wear masks. We should all wear masks, but you know,
Speaker 1: it would be great as if we had clear masks
Speaker 1: because interpreting social cues, if we could interpret social shoes.
Speaker 1: You know, now with a mask, you can't tell if
Speaker 1: someone's smirking at you or smiling or yawning, right, and
Speaker 1: so and our brains because back when we were cave people,
Speaker 1: if you got kicked out of the group, you were
Speaker 1: gonna get picked off the herd. You were gonna die,
Speaker 1: or no one was going to share their food with you,
Speaker 1: or no one's going to help you build a structure.
Speaker 1: You know, if you weren't in the club and in
Speaker 1: the tribe and you got separated or ostracized, you were
Speaker 1: gonna die. And so we still, on a very deep level,
Speaker 1: have that kind of reaction. Am I safe? Am I
Speaker 1: in the group? Am I okay? So when you're on
Speaker 1: a zoom meeting and there's like eight people, your brain
Speaker 1: is scanning, scanning all the time to make sure everybody's
Speaker 1: okay with you. And if it's a herky jerky connection
Speaker 1: or you can't see their face or their cameras off,
Speaker 1: that's missing data that your brain is trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: fill in. So that will make us anxious. So these
Speaker 1: kids that are on zoom calls or the kids that
Speaker 1: can play with their friends but they can't really play
Speaker 1: the way they used to play. And don't don't go
Speaker 1: run to Johnny. You know, Johnny's dad works in the
Speaker 1: emergency room. Don't stand back like the rules keep changing,
Speaker 1: the social rules are changing, and they and they can't
Speaker 1: be held and comforted by so many people Now it's
Speaker 1: just maybe your parents and that's it. I have always
Speaker 1: viewed myself that I've typically been for most of my life.
Speaker 1: A person that functions under my trust is yours to lose.
Speaker 1: When I met people, I was very open, regardless of
Speaker 1: what I did for a living. And now with this
Speaker 1: what's going on in the world, as much as anything
Speaker 1: in combination with the COVID, it's made me think, you know,
Speaker 1: my trust is yours to gain. I'm going to go
Speaker 1: out in the world now filled with suspicions. I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: do you find that this suspicion, this neurosis about going
Speaker 1: back out into the world. Are we going to go
Speaker 1: back into the world and everyone's going to be different. Well,
Speaker 1: so there's a few things that are making us suspicious.
Speaker 1: We're worried about somebody getting us sick, and we're worried
Speaker 1: about our democracy crumbling and that people around us don't
Speaker 1: get it or they're so misinformed that they're never going
Speaker 1: to get it. Yeah, it's all completely terrifying. So look,
Speaker 1: you know, the the idea with oxytocin is if somebody
Speaker 1: makes you trust them, then you are more open. You
Speaker 1: have more oxytocin you become more trusting. They feel that
Speaker 1: you're becoming more trusting, they start to have more oxytocin
Speaker 1: and its cycles upward from that, you know, more eye
Speaker 1: contact if you could hold them or like a really
Speaker 1: great but but is everybody get to turn the oxytocin
Speaker 1: spick it off when they go out? It has been
Speaker 1: turned off? First of all, you only have oxytocin if
Speaker 1: you're in that parasympathetic state. We're calm, right, so it
Speaker 1: has been turned if you know, here's the analogy I
Speaker 1: give of. You know, when you're in fight or flight,
Speaker 1: which we all are now, right, if your kitchens on fire,
Speaker 1: you don't pick up the phone if it's ringing, or
Speaker 1: make a call, or you know you're that a fire
Speaker 1: and like where's the fire extinguisher? Or have to run
Speaker 1: out of the house. You don't have any social skills.
Speaker 1: You're not. There's no niceness there. So the more we're
Speaker 1: in fight or flight and the more we're in the
Speaker 1: sympathetic mode, the lousier are social skills are, the less
Speaker 1: we trust, the less oxytocin we have. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't really have oxytocin when you're in fight or flight.
Speaker 1: You have adrenaline and cortisol. And this is why we
Speaker 1: can't sleep. You know, we're biting our nails, we're trying
Speaker 1: to soothe ourselves orally, you've got this fat around your stomach.
Speaker 1: It's because we're in fight or flight. It deranges your metabolism.
Speaker 1: It makes it very hard to sleep, you don't digest
Speaker 1: your food. Well, all the things that happen in parasympathetic
Speaker 1: where you can rest and digest and you can have
Speaker 1: sex and you can be social, none of those things
Speaker 1: happen when we're in fight or flight. Like for me,
Speaker 1: my fear this is so antathetical to my nature. But
Speaker 1: my fear is I'm gonna go out into the world
Speaker 1: with with this idea of like the less people in
Speaker 1: my life now the better people are the problem. And
Speaker 1: I need people in my life on an as needed basis.
Speaker 1: Everyone who's in my life, why are you in my life?
Speaker 1: And if I don't have a really good reason, it's
Speaker 1: it's literally like we're all gonna on an emotional level,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go in and we're all going to clean
Speaker 1: out the closet now right, Well, it's like does this
Speaker 1: person spark joy or not? No, they have to go.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but that's good. I want to say one
Speaker 1: thing about your on WE at five o'clock in the evening,
Speaker 1: and that is, if you ever have a morning that
Speaker 1: you can get out and go see a sunrise. It
Speaker 1: is the antidote to that on WE that if you
Speaker 1: happen to be around for dawn and sunrise, you will
Speaker 1: have a little more hope. Um, and you know, don't
Speaker 1: bring your phone, don't don't like no news, have like
Speaker 1: an hour of nature, you know. No, I turned my
Speaker 1: phone off a lot. I've been doing much better with
Speaker 1: my phone. Well, listen, I think, I think if you
Speaker 1: read me correctly, I'm not quite sure, but you are
Speaker 1: a professional listener. What I want is I want to
Speaker 1: take some pharmaceuticals with you, and we're going to paddle
Speaker 1: out into the mist together. We're gonna just open ourselves
Speaker 1: up to whatever the universe is telling us. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm being silly, but it's like, well, it's soothing though.
Speaker 1: It's like hydrotherapy, you know, just listening. You know, first
Speaker 1: of all, even just the salt air, even just smelling
Speaker 1: the salt there is good for your brain. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for doing this with us. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: absolutely my pleasure. Anytime you know you need to talk
Speaker 1: to a shrink, you come call me. I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: in touch with you, okay it' Psychiatrist Julie Holland has
Speaker 1: a private practice in New York City. I'm out like Baldwin.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing is brought to you by my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Carrie donohue, and Zach McNeice.
Speaker 1: Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Thanks for listening all