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Integrative Psychiatry

Overview of Genetic Testing for Psychiatry by David Rosenthal, MD

By April 24, 2021March 6th, 2024No Comments

In this video, Dr. David Rosenthal will talk about the Overview of Genetic Testing.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

So, as you all know already, when it comes to treating depression or treatment resistant depression, as the slide says treatment as usual 50% of patients don’t respond to first line therapies, as we all talked about all weekend. Things are fairly abysmal in terms of our ability to really treat treatment resistant depression. The STAR*D trials really point that out, that remission rates, when you start getting into the second, third, fourth antidepressant, remission rates are incredibly low, 13% as they point out by the fourth medication, and intolerance rates go up to a full 34%, which is really quite abysmal.

Genetics 101: Nature and Nurture

A brief review of genetics: genes plus environment determine your phenotype.

Traditionally in psychiatry, we do a pretty good job of evaluating environmental contributors to depression, mood disorders and psychiatric illnesses. But you know, for the first time in the last several years, we’ve had access to these genetic tests that can give us at least one more piece of the puzzle, alleles or alternative forms of genes. Obviously, we get one allele from each parent. So, when somebody has two of the same allele, we say they’re homozygous for a particular genetic trait, or heterozygous, if they have different copies from each parent.

Diet and Nutrition

Patients carrying the S or L (G) allele are at higher risk of side effects and/or lack of response to SSRIs

Okay, the SLC6A4 gene, this is probably one of the most common ones that people are aware of.

So, we use the word coding for that a gene codes for the production of a protein. When I explain it to patients, I say that, you know that your genetic code is like this massive blueprint, just like you’d use a blueprint to build a house. This is the blueprint for the production of a protein, but I think of the serotonin transporter protein as being somewhat like a vacuum cleaner, whose function it is to suck up serotonin molecules in the synaptic cleft and spit them back into the presynaptic neuron after they’ve been used.

Now, the other thing I want to emphasize in terms of mythology about these tests, is that I really want to emphasize that you can’t just choose one gene and say, see, this is what the gene says, and that’s everything. Remember, people are way more complicated than that. You may very well see a notable exception, where you’ve got some patient who’s been on an SSRI for years, and they’re doing great. Don’t take them off the SSRI just because they have two short alleles, you have to always incorporate your clinical judgment.

Brain-derived Neurotrophic Factor and Physical Activity

The utility of this is you can see through the variants, which patients really have trouble, at least genetically speaking, making enough BDNF, so obviously, as has been talked about here, elsewhere, you want as much BDNF as you can get. I know that exercise has been talked about. If you have trouble making BDNF, I call it brain fertilizer, it’s such an important compound for the brain. At least if you don’t make enough there are some things you can do about it. You know, exercise, diet’s been talked about, sleeping well at night, social relationships are really critical for good BDNF. Having toxic people in your life is just a BDNF killer, essentially. So obviously, a lot of people have toxic family. I use it to talk about toxic family members. If you can’t get rid of your family member, it’s critical through psychotherapy to learn how to deal with that family member so that their hostility and putting you down doesn’t affect you in the same way. Good psychotherapy increases BDNF levels quite significantly. It’s a good argument for when people say why can’t I just take the drug? You know, why do I have to go do psychotherapy? Well, psychotherapy is a biological treatment. If you want an argument, here it is.

Sara Reed, MS, LMFT

Sara Reed is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and CEO of Mind’s iHealth Solutions, a digital health company that provides evidence based and culturally responsible mental health services for underserved groups. As a mental health futurist and clinical researcher, Sara examines the ways culture informs the way we diagnose and treat mental illness. Sara’s prior research work includes participation as a study therapist in psychedelic therapy research at Yale University and the University of Connecticut’s Health Center. Sara was the first Black therapist to provide MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in a clinical trial and continues to engage in ongoing advocacy work around health equity in psychedelic medicine.

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Jeffrey Guss, MD is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and researcher with specializations in psychoanalytic therapy and the treatment of substance use disorders. He was Co-Principal Investigator and Director of Psychedelic Therapy Training for the NYU School of Medicine’s study on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of cancer-related existential distress, which was published in Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2016. He currently is a study therapist in the NYU study on Psychedelic-Assisted therapy in the treatment of Alcoholism, a collaborator with Yale University’s study on psychedelic-assisted therapy for Major Depressive Disorder and a study therapist with the MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) study on treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy. 

Dr. Guss is interested in the integration of psychedelic therapies with contemporary psychoanalytic theory and has published in Studies in Gender and Sexuality and Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. He has published (with Elizabeth Nielson, PhD) a paper on “the influence of therapists’ first had experience with psychedelics on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy research and therapist training” in The Journal of Psychedelic Studies, August, 2018. He is an Instructor and Mentor with the California Institute of Integral Studies’ Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Supervisor in NYU’s Fellowship in Addiction Psychiatry. 

Dr. Guss maintains a private practice in New York City.

Will Van Derveer, MD

Will Van Derveer, MD is Co-Founder of Integrative Psychiatry Institute and Integrative Psychiatry Centers. Dr. Van Derveer was co-investigator on a phase 2 MAPS study of Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for treatment-resistant PTSD, and co-authored the publication of this study in 2018. He has also provided Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in two MAPS training studies. An active provider of KAP at his clinic in Boulder, CO, he has been teaching others KAP therapy for several years. Dr. Van Derveer contributed a chapter on mescaline in the 2021 "Handbook of Medical Hallucinogens" (edited by Charles Grob and Jim Grigsby). He is co-host of the Higher Practice Podcast.

Dr. Van Derveer regards unresolved emotional trauma as the most significant under-recognized root cause of psychiatric symptoms in integrative psychiatry practice, along with gut issues, hormone imbalances, inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and other functional medicine challenges. He is trained in Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, Internal Family Systems, and other psychotherapy techniques. His current clinical passion is psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, which he mentors interested doctors in providing. An avid meditator, he has been a meditation instructor since 2004.

For the past several years Dr. Van Derveer has taught psychiatrists and other psychiatric providers integrative psychiatry in a number of settings, including course directing the CU psychiatry residents’ course as well as with Scott Shannon and Janet Settle at the Psychiatry MasterClass.


Scott has been a student of consciousness since his honors thesis on that topic at the University of Arizona in the 1970s under the tutelage of Dr. Andrew Weil. Following medical school, Scott studied Jungian therapy and acupuncture while working as a primary care physician in a rural area for four years. Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy became a facet of his practice before this medicine was scheduled in 1985. He then completed a psychiatry residency at Columbia program in New York. Scott studied cross-cultural psychiatry and completed a child/adolescent psychiatry fellowship at the University of New Mexico.

In 2010 he founded Wholeness Center in Fort Collins. This innovative clinic provides cross-disciplinary evaluation and care for all mental health concerns. Scott serves as a site Principal Investigator and therapist for the Phase III trial of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD sponsored by (MAPS). He has also published numerous articles about his research on (CBD) in mental health. Currently, Scott works extensively with psychedelic-assisted-psychotherapy. He lectures all over the world to professional groups interested in a deeper look at mental health issues, safer tools, and a paradigm-shifting perspective about transformative care.

Will Van Derveer, MD is co-founder of Integrative Psychiatry Institute (IPI), along with friend and colleague Keith Kurlander, MA. He co-created IPI as an expression of what he stands for. First, that anyone can heal, and second that we medical providers must embrace our own healing journeys in order to fully command our potency as healers.

Dr. Van Derveer spent the last 20 years innovating and testing a comprehensive approach to addressing psychiatric challenges which transcends the conventional model he learned in medical school at Vanderbilt University and residency at University of Colorado, while deeply engaging his own healing path.

He founded the Integrative Psychiatric Healing Center in in 2001 in Boulder, CO, where he currently practices. Dr. Van Derveer regards unresolved emotional trauma as the most significant root cause of psychiatric symptoms in integrative psychiatry practice, along with gut issues, hormone imbalances, inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and other functional medicine challenges. He is trained in Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, Internal Family Systems, and other psychotherapy techniques. His current clinical passion is psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, which he mentors interested doctors in providing. An avid meditator, he has been a meditation instructor since 2004.

For the past several years Dr. Van Derveer has taught psychiatrists and other psychiatric providers integrative psychiatry in a number of settings, including course directing the CU psychiatry residents’ course as well as with Scott Shannon and Janet Settle at the Psychiatry MasterClass. In addition to his clinical work and teaching, he was co-investigator in 2016 a Phase II randomized clinical trial, sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). He continues to support this protocol, now in a Phase III clinical trial under break-through designation by FDA.

Dr. Van Derveer is a diplomate of the American Board of Integrative and Holistic Medicine (ABoIHM) since 2013, and he was board certified in the first wave of diplomates of the new American Board of Integrative Medicine (ABIM) in 2016.