Psychedelic Therapy: Why We Wrote The Book + The Future of Mental Healthcare – Keith Kurlander & Dr. Will Van Derveer – HPP 154
Episode 154
Keith Kurlander, MA, LPC
Dr. Will Van Derveer
In this episode, Will and Keith announce the release of their long-awaited book, Psychedelic Therapy, and discuss the personal and professional experiences that drove them to write it. The conversation delves into the “psychedelic revolution,” critiquing the current state of mental healthcare for its focus on symptom suppression rather than addressing the root causes of suffering, such as trauma. Both speakers share their unique paths—Will’s disillusionment with traditional psychiatry and Keith’s own journey through a challenging psychedelic experience and subsequent mental illness. They explore how psychedelic therapy serves as a tool for inner exploration, moving beyond the “known” self to foster authenticity and growth. The episode also emphasizes the critical importance of a safe, guided clinical setting and the necessity for specialized therapist training to handle client vulnerability.
Show Notes:
00:00 – 01:56: Introduction and the “Psychedelic Revolution”
The speakers introduce themselves and their long-awaited book on psychedelic therapy. They discuss the “revolution” in mental healthcare and the global need for awareness regarding these new tools.
01:57 – 04:25: Will’s Path: Disillusionment with Traditional Psychiatry
Will shares his background, noting his disillusionment with standard psychiatric tools that failed many patients. His passion for the book stems from a desire to address the root causes of suffering, particularly the various manifestations of trauma beyond typical PTSD.
04:26 – 08:00: Keith’s Journey: From Challenging Experiences to Healing
Keith recounts a traumatic psilocybin experience at age 19 that led to a long struggle with mental illness. He explains how this journey led him to understand that psychedelics, when used properly, can bring trauma to the surface for resolution. He talks about client stories as well.
08:01 – 11:02: Beyond Symptom Reduction: Authenticity and Growth
The discussion shifts to the goals of healing, which Will defines as more than just the absence of symptoms. He shares how his experiences with indigenous Ayahuasca ceremonies helped him overcome fear and embrace his authenticity, leading to the creation of their institute.
11:03 – 14:35: The Failure of Modern Mental Healthcare
The speakers critique the current medical model for its over-reliance on suppressing symptoms with medication rather than helping individuals discover their deeper selves. They compare psychiatric medications to suppressive treatments like opiates, which may help people function but do not facilitate true contact with oneself.
14:36 – 17:31: Psychedelic Therapy as a Tool for Inner Exploration
They explore the human tendency to avoid pain and how traditional medicine can inadvertently support this avoidance. Psychedelic therapy is presented as a unique tool that helps individuals go deeper into themselves rather than further away.
17:32 – 21:37: The Importance of Setting and Professional Guidance
Will and Keith emphasize that clinical psychedelic therapy is entirely different from recreational use. They discuss the necessity of a safe, guided setting to manage the “inner wilderness” and the potential “dragons” or scary internal neighborhoods a person might encounter.
21:38 – 25:46: Comparing Clinical, Spiritual, and Ceremonial Contexts
The conversation touches on the integration of Western psychological paradigms with spiritual or ceremonial uses of psychedelics. They note that while indigenous ceremonies are powerful, clinical therapy offers a specific structure for Western psychological ailments.
25:47 – 30:42: The Therapist’s Role and Client Vulnerability
The speakers highlight the vulnerability and suggestibility of clients during psychedelic sessions. They stress the importance of therapist training to ensure they do not unconsciously project their own beliefs onto the client.
30:43 – 35:57: Facing the Unknown and Identity in Pain
Keith discusses common fears, such as losing control or remembering suppressed trauma. They explore how people often bond through stories of pain and how psychedelic therapy can act as “dynamite” to break through an identity built on past suffering.
35:58 – 39:56: Metaphors for Healing: The Castle and the Wilderness
Will uses the metaphor of a castle to represent the known self and the wilderness as the unknown. They share an anecdote of a client who confronted a “demon” in a journey only to find it was an aspect of herself needing contact, leading to wholeness.
39:57 – 45:09: Conclusion and Book Overview
The speakers summarize the book’s contents, including the history of mental health, the role of trauma, and a roadmap for healing. Will shares a personal note on the book’s release date, which coincides with his late father’s 80th birthday.
Full Episode Transcript
00:48 Will: Well, here we are. It’s been a long time.
00:52 Keith: Sure has.
00:54 Will: Yeah. Good to be back. We’re back for an important moment.
01:05 Will: We’ve got a lot going on right now with our book, *Psychedelic Therapy*. Here we come.
01:13 Keith: Yeah. A long-awaited, needed book that I think we’re both pretty excited for people to get to read.
01:25 Will: Absolutely, and the larger movement.
01:32 Will: The time has come for the revolution. There is a huge group of people globally who are still unaware of this new tool that’s coming online.
01:56 Keith: Yeah. Well, maybe we should start off. We’re really going to talk about why we wrote the book. Will, why did you devote three years of your life to getting a book out about psychedelic therapy?
02:26 Will: Well, I first got disillusioned with psychiatry way back in 2004 after I graduated from residency training and found out quickly that the tools that I had available left way too many people without the results that they needed for recovery.
03:00 Will: That set me off on a path of trying to find better tools and understanding different kinds of root causes.
03:16 Will: It was such a huge passion of mine to raise awareness about the role of trauma in many different manifestations.
03:37 Will: The thing we talk about a lot in the book is the different ways that trauma can show up that don’t look like PTSD.
04:02 Will: That was one of the big drivers for me—to get the word out about the way that we do things in psychiatry and how it’s flawed, and what the opportunity is for this revolutionary new treatment.
04:26 Will: It’s a message of hope. It’s exciting. How about you, Keith? What was your driving force here?
04:33 Keith: Well, my story begins with a challenging psychedelic experience at 19 where I was experimenting and took psilocybin.
05:08 Keith: I was in my dorm room and I ended up alone and suicidal and was going to jump out of my window of a high-rise building. Thankfully, I’m still here.
05:32 Keith: It kicked off a huge journey into what psychedelics do. I got very mentally ill for a while and was battling mental illness throughout my whole adulthood.
06:05 Keith: A lot of clients were finding me in the early days of my career having challenging psychedelic experiences. It was very fringe in the early 2000s to even be talking about psychedelics as a healing tool.
07:08 Keith: I’ve really come to understand that psychedelics, when done well, often root out trauma in all kinds of ways and bring it to the surface.
07:34 Keith: When done well, it turns into more resolution of trauma. I think one of the things psychedelic therapy is addressing more often than not is trauma.
07:58 Will: Absolutely. Yeah, definitely.
08:02 Will: I think the other piece that I have been more cautious about sharing publicly was my own personal journey of healing.
08:32 Will: If the goal of getting well is more than just not having symptoms, what is the goal?
08:50 Will: Something we embrace is the journey of post-traumatic growth, self-actualization, and authenticity—having the courage to be uniquely who we are.
09:14 Will: For me personally, psychedelics helped me to see that I was playing a game in my life of being someone that I thought other people needed me to be or wanted me to be.
09:40 Will: In my work in traditional indigenous Ayahuasca ceremonies, I received a lot of healing around that fear, and that enabled me to close a painful chapter in 2017 and move into starting the institute with you.
11:03 Keith: This leads into the premise of the book—really how and where mental healthcare has failed.
11:17 Keith: Mental healthcare is not focused on helping you become more of who you are deeply. The general practice of medicine is about reducing symptoms with medicine.
12:11 Keith: We’re seeing a lot of people not even get better in that method. You could argue the body doesn’t want those symptoms to go away so easily without dealing with something deeper.
13:02 Will: It’s kind of a wholesale re-evaluation of the field. What you’re speaking to is critical—the avoidance of pain and using medications to suppress pain to suppress symptoms.
13:54 Will: Psychiatric medications are suppressive treatments that help people function, but they don’t actually help you make deeper contact with yourself such that you can live a more authentic life.
14:36 Keith: I’ve spent a good amount of time in avoidance. I think it’s a symptom of our culture where it’s hard to do the inner work.
15:54 Keith: One of the coolest tools out there is psychedelic therapy. There are medicines that actually help you go deeper into yourself versus helping you get further away from yourself.
17:45 Will: Psychiatry has gotten into this habit of looking for ways to reduce suffering with medication. But we lack the willingness to lean into suffering and understand that suffering can be meaningful and can grow us.
19:44 Keith: When we bring psychedelics into the conversation, we’re introducing a very strong amplifier. That amplification has to be done in a very strategic, safe way because the inner wilderness is bigger than the outer wilderness in many ways.
20:57 Keith: Using psychedelics in a safe setting is a completely different experience from recreational psychedelics people may have done when they were younger.
21:31 Keith: You haven’t done it unless you’ve done psychedelic therapy with a guide who’s well-trained in a safe setting.
23:16 Keith: It is good to have an understanding of psychedelic therapy if you’re going to use it as a client or provider because, without understanding, you could feel like you got harmed or it wasn’t right for you.
24:29 Will: There are big differences between traditional indigenous ceremonial uses and clinical uses. Therapy brings in Western psychological paradigms, which can be very useful for the type of ailments we suffer from.
27:25 Will: Ordinary therapy and psychedelic therapy differ along the lines of the vulnerability and suggestibility you have on a psychedelic in the room with the therapist.
28:00 Will: If you’re going to do psychedelic therapy, you want to make sure that person has a productive way of holding you without unconsciously projecting their spiritual beliefs onto you.
28:30 Will: This is another element about training therapists—helping the psychedelic therapist be self-aware enough to handle the suggestibility and vulnerability of the client in an impeccable way.
30:11 Keith: People who have never done psychedelics often say, “I’m afraid of what I’m going to see about myself,” “I’m afraid I’m going to remember something I don’t want to remember,” or “I’m afraid of losing control.”
31:41 Will: Human beings bond through stories of pain. If it’s become an identity and the goal is to transcend what we know and move into what we don’t know, we have to confront that attachment to our pain story.
32:28 Will: Most of us are going to need a lot of TNT to break ourselves out of that cell block of identity to what we think we know.
35:58 Will: The metaphor of the castle on the hill represents what we know and who we think we are. To set foot outside the castle and risk what could happen in the wilderness is very brave but necessary for growth.
37:53 Keith: I had a client with a recurring nightmare of a ghost attacking her. In a psychedelic experience, she asked the ghost what it wanted, and it turned out to be a deceased relative she never got to say goodbye to.
38:08 Keith: Sometimes these demons we’re confronting are not demons at all but aspects of ourselves that need contact.
38:21 Will: This points to healing your lineage and ancestral healing. The availability of ancestors in psychedelic experiences is really interesting, even for people who don’t subscribe to that spirituality.
39:00 Will: If the space is held well, most of the time a person emerges with more of a sense of wholeness than before because they accessed areas in themselves they didn’t know existed.
40:12 Keith: The book of *Psychedelic Therapy* goes deep into where the mental health system is and traces its origins.
40:48 Keith: We go into what trauma is and why there is so much hope once you understand it. We go through the medicines, preparation, dosing, integration, and stories of healing.
41:51 Will: My father passed away recently and the book is being released on his birthday, March 31st. I’m feeling a deep personal connection and lineage connection.
42:28 Will: We hope this book can bring healing to people who are really deeply struggling.
43:08 Keith: This book is about spreading awareness of a tool that could turn a person’s life around.
44:03 Will: All right, until next time.
