meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
How To! with Mike Pesca

How To Take Psychedelics for Your Mental Health with Dr. Will Van Derveer

How To! with Mike Pesca

Peach Fish Projects

Education, How To

4.32K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2026

⏱️ 41 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Stand-up comedian and philosopher Myq Kaplan has built a successful career exploring the human condition, but navigating his own underlying anxiety presents a very different challenge. He knows how to handle recreational and spiritual psychedelic trips in the jungles of Peru, but the leap to "crossing the streams" and using these substances in a formal, clinical therapeutic setting feels uncertain. On this episode: How To!'s Mike Pesca brings on Dr. Will Van Derveer, a veteran psychiatrist, co-founder of the Integrative Psychiatry Institute, and author of Psychedelic Therapy. Dr. Will Van Derveer offers Myq guidance on using medicines like ketamine and psilocybin to "shake the snow globe" of the brain's default mode network, the importance of treating the therapy like a psychological tow truck rather than a permanent ride—and why you really need to stop bothering the Sonoran Desert toads. 

Executive Producer Corey Wara

Edited by Geoff Craig

Booking by Ben Astaire

Do you have a burning question or a problem you need help with? Email us at howto@mikepesca.com and we will consider your topic for the show.


For full Pesca content and updates, check out our website at https://www.mikepesca.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
To receive ad-free content, become a Pesca Plus subscriber at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/
For Mike's daily takes on Substack, subscribe to The Gist List https://mikepesca.substack.com/


Follow us on Social Media:⁠⁠⁠⁠
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/pescagist/
https://x.com/pescami
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@pescagist⁠⁠⁠⁠
TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@pescagist


To advertise on the show, contact ⁠⁠⁠⁠ad-sales@libsyn.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ or visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://advertising.libsyn.com/howto

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

If you're enjoying today's how to, then I think you'll also love listening to Embodied the

0:04.7

26 Amby Award-winning Best Wellness or Relationships podcast produced by our friends at WUNC,

0:12.9

North Carolina, Public Radio. Each episode, journalist Anita Rao, asks a question we don't ask nearly

0:20.1

enough. How do we navigate the most intimate parts

0:23.7

of our lives? We're talking sex, relationships, and health, but not in the ways you'd expect.

0:29.0

Like, what does it really cost, financially and emotionally, to be undocumented in America?

0:34.7

Or how do you approach sex again after surviving sexual assault?

0:38.6

In every episode, you'll meet people rethinking what they thought they knew about their bodies,

0:43.3

their relationships, and themselves.

0:45.5

It's honest, it's eye-opening, and pretty useful.

0:48.3

So find embodied wherever you're listening right now and tell them how to send you.

0:53.8

I tend to think about ketamine like a tow truck getting you out of a ditch, but you're not

0:58.7

going to want to ride around town on the back of a tow truck for the rest of your life.

1:03.7

Welcome to how to. I'm Mike Pasca. Picture yourself on a boat on a river where all your

1:08.3

childhood trauma melts into marshmallow pies. Somebody calls you,

1:11.9

it's your monkey brain rudely, but now all fades into smiles. All right, that intro did a lot.

1:18.2

It was a bad Beatles cover. It was a hoary description of a psychedelic trip, but all I can access,

1:24.1

I have to admit, a naive depiction of how psychedelics might help heal the mind or metabolize

1:29.8

old trauma. But I want to know more. This is such a new and I think promising area of growth and

1:36.1

therapy. I bet you know, like I know, so many, many people who are interested in using psychedelics

1:43.5

as therapy, or maybe who are doing it themselves.

1:47.0

And some of these people are funny. Some are vegan. Some are Buddhist. Some are Jewish. Some are from

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Peach Fish Projects, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Peach Fish Projects and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.