PT 585 - Neeka Levy and Zach Skiles - Healing Ukraine Trauma
Psychedelics Today
Psychedelics Today, LLC
4.6 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 11 February 2025
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of Psychedelics Today, Joe Moore is joined by Neeka Levy and Zach Skiles of Heal Ukraine Trauma, a nonprofit bringing psychedelic-assisted therapy to veterans and civilians affected by war. They discuss the organization's origins, the impact of intergenerational trauma in Ukraine, and the evolving role of psychedelic treatments in a war-torn nation.
Nika, a first-generation Ukrainian-American and neuroscience-trained psychiatric nurse practitioner, and Zach, a Marine veteran turned psychologist, share their journey into this work, highlighting the importance of group ketamine therapy as a scalable, culturally aligned solution. They explore Ukraine's complex regulatory landscape, the need for rigorous research, and the challenges of working in a war zone.
They also touch on the role of psychedelics in processing moral injury, the importance of including family members in healing, and how Ukraine's collectivist culture influences therapeutic approaches. With insights on historical trauma, ethical considerations, and the potential future of MDMA and psilocybin therapy in Ukraine, this conversation sheds light on a vital, evolving effort.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everybody, welcome back to Psychedelics today. This is Joe Moore, joined today by Nika Levy and Zach Giles. How are you doing today? |
| 0:28.0 | Good. Thanks for having us. |
| 0:29.5 | We're excited to be here. Thank you. |
| 0:31.7 | Yeah, I can't wait for this one. This is going to be fun. So you two are doing a really interesting project, but I want to set the stage first |
| 0:38.4 | before we dig into your really exciting international project here. But what organization are you |
| 0:45.1 | with currently for this project? Heal Ukraine trauma. Yeah, heal Ukraine trauma. Cool. |
| 0:50.9 | Little organization, a nonprofit here in the U.S., that was started by a personal friend, Elizabeth Ames, and Elaine Klein, who really took this, pioneered it for a long period of time that predated the Russian conflict in Ukraine. |
| 1:09.9 | They originally wanted to set up psychedelic |
| 1:12.7 | assisted therapies to help the intergenerational trauma that had impacted Ukraine and its |
| 1:18.0 | veterans as well as its families to heal from just decades of previous conflicts. And then |
| 1:26.4 | the war started for Ukraine in 2022, and it became |
| 1:31.6 | kind of a new mission that held more importance for them. Cool. Yeah, I forget this sometimes |
| 1:38.7 | about myself, but I took a lot of Russian history in my undergrad. And I used to know a guy who was like one of the people that would be contacted when there was a conflict. He's like professor type. And they're going, oh, get him over here. You know, that kind of. I was like, ah, this is always interesting to me. So I kind of forgot about the Ukrainian famine and like how messy that was. So for folks that don't know, |
| 2:02.9 | the Soviets came in and said, this is our grain. And then they would actually protect |
| 2:07.3 | leftover grain and let it spoil with armed guards and let people starve in Ukraine. So like |
| 2:12.2 | this and that probably was not the earliest of their traumas, right? Like I think I remember reading not that long ago that like the Slavic folks had been |
| 2:21.3 | oppressed by like invading forces, like almost more than any other group because it's like |
| 2:28.7 | centuries and like many centuries. |
| 2:31.0 | And, you know, probably earlier than the Mongol invasions and stuff so like this is a long |
| 2:37.1 | time running right and where we get the word slave from slavic there's oh really interesting |
| 2:44.0 | didn't know that english dialect that is it's what i'm from there's been a long-standing history |
| 2:50.5 | of conflict for Slavic peoples. |
... |
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