PT518 – The EMBARK Model of Psychedelic Therapy, with Alex Belser, Ph.D. & Bill Brennan, Ph.D.
Psychedelics Today
Psychedelics Today, LLC
4.6 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 4 June 2024
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Kyle interviews Alex Belser, Ph.D. and Bill Brennan, Ph.D.: psychologists, psychedelic researchers, authors, and co-creators of the EMBARK model, a framework for psychedelic therapy.
When Belser and Brennan worked together at Cybin, they canvassed the field of psychedelic research and saw very little reporting (if any) of the manuals researchers were using, so they created the EMBARK model as a "big tent" framework – a way to understand what patients were going through from the perspective of six different clinical domains, where the clinician can go deeper into whichever domain is needed based on their specific skill sets. The EMBARK model has been used in two randomized controlled trials to date, and its corresponding book, EMBARK Psychedelic Therapy for Depression: A New Approach for the Whole Person (co-authored by Belser and Brennan), was released in April.
They discuss:
- The six domains and four ethical care cornerstones that make up EMBARK, as well as the many proposed change mechanisms that come into play
- Concerns over facilitators stepping aside and letting the medicine do the work: How much of a factor is someone's presence in the room?
- How much smaller, "little t" traumas can affect people – trauma doesn't always come from a single hallmark event
- The need for facilitators to be trained well (and trauma-informed), as it's nearly impossible to tell when an adverse outcome is coming
and more!
For links, head to the show notes page.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, everybody and welcome back to psychedelics today. |
| 0:15.5 | This is Joe Moore coming out from Breck Ridge, Colorado. |
| 0:17.6 | Today on the show, we have Kyle Buller. |
| 0:19.9 | Kyle is busy and he's out in |
| 0:24.1 | Amsterdam now for the ICPR conference. We also had a little vital retreat before that. |
| 0:30.9 | I think it was vital breath work, and that was pretty great. And so today on the show, we have |
| 0:36.7 | two new people. I don't believe they've been on the show, we have two new people. |
| 0:38.6 | I don't believe they've been on the show before Dr. Alex Belser and Dr. |
| 0:42.8 | Bill Brennan discussing a new methodology for psychedelic therapy they've put together. |
| 0:50.3 | It's been around for a bit. |
| 0:51.9 | They call it Emb psychedelic therapy book is |
| 0:55.8 | a embark psychedelic therapy for depression a new approach for the whole |
| 0:59.9 | person came out in April so dr. Belser did a bunch of research at NYU in Yale |
| 1:06.8 | and dr. Brennan brings a bunch of experiences as a clinical supervisor and trainer and talk |
| 1:14.8 | all about this embark model. Yeah. So I think I think you're going to like this one. It's |
| 1:20.7 | nice to have a different model. Everybody kind of knows this maps model to a degree. And it's |
| 1:26.9 | nice to have another model that we can speak to |
| 1:30.9 | because it does have a lot of clinical data backing it. So I think you'll dig that. So actually, |
| 1:38.4 | I was super wrong. Alex has been on the show a few times, including episode 413, where he was talking |
| 1:43.4 | about being a co-editor of the |
| 1:45.2 | Chakruna book, Queering Psychedelics, from oppression to liberation in psychedelic medicine. |
| 1:51.2 | And yeah, I think that's it for the intro. Check out our retreats. We've got one coming up in |
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