The Transformative Role of Psychedelics and Ketamine in Behavioral Health with Lana Seiler

Imagine navigating uncharted territories. That's exactly what our episode today is about; we're on an exciting exploration with Lana Seiler, the clinical manager at All Points North Lodge in Colorado. We're demystifying the potent force of psychedelics and ketamine in behavioral health care, dispelling myths and opening up discussions about this fascinating world. Lana graciously guides us through her professional journey into integrative psychiatry and neuro-technology, shedding light on her profound interest in the transformative role of these substances and the complexities we encounter along the way. 

We're not stopping there; we also want to educate our listeners about the realm of behavioral and mental health. Think of it as a virtual, welcoming space where we help you decode the often convoluted terminologies used by clinicians. We tackle the tricky topic of compliance issues, rules, and regulations and discuss the triumphs and tribulations of integrating these innovative treatment modalities. The adventure gets thrilling as we delve into the intricacies of tracking systems, patient success metrics, and the challenge of measuring long-term outcomes. So, join the conversation, and let's chart a course towards a new understanding of how these powerful medicines can be responsibly and effectively incorporated into our Western paradigm.

Transcript

Exploring Psychedelics in Behavioral Health

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to Hatching Creativity . This isn't just another behavioral health podcast . This is the place where thought leaders converge to talk about real-life challenges , breakthroughs and pivotal aha moments . Thanks for tuning into Hatching Creativity . Today I speak with Lana Seiler , the clinical manager over at All Points North in Colorado . She also has a podcast called Therapy Unboxed . Today we talk about some new treatment modalities like ketamine and psychedelics in behavioral health , as well as some of the data they're collecting and tracking around the results . She also shares some of her tips in getting clients to participate more readily in outcome surveys . And don't forget if you like what you hear , please like , share and tell all your friends about Hatching Creativity . Today we're going to be talking about psychedelics and behavioral health care . What is your experience in this area ? First , Great .

Speaker 2 0:56

Yes , so I am the clinical manager of our trauma program at All Points North Lodge , so I've built our trauma program and I'm sort of helping it continue to run . I'm in transition into our plus department , which is integrative psychiatry and neuro-technology . So that's where we house deep GMS , hbot , neurofeedback , the celoganglian block injection and ketamine . My interest is moving in that direction because of the sort of precipice that we're at right now with psychedelics coming into the fields and more of a real way I mean we're looking at mid-2024 , potentially for legalization or at least more use in a clinical setting we as clinicians and psychologists need to sort of know what is going on . We need to know what's being looked at , what's being studied , how people are looking at implementing , what rules , regulations , restrictions , compliance issues there are . There's just so much to look at . Opening up the store .

Speaker 1 2:01

So when you say there's so much to look at , if you have a treatment provider who's watching this and looking to get into treatment with psychedelics or this type of therapy , one little bit about the successes that you've seen and then what kind of data you're tracking around the success so you know that you are successful and this may help for people to understand that this is a very viable solution for certain people .

Speaker 2 2:30

So we're only working with ketamine right now , obviously .

Speaker 1 2:35

What type of work ? How are you administering it ?

Speaker 2 2:37

So we started out in chenazole and now we're moving to intramuscular . As we know , there's some difficulty with getting ketamine right now . There's a shortage . There's some supply chain issues , so the preferred route might not always be available , but those are the two that we're using . Most of our patients are preferring intramuscular .

Speaker 1 2:58

What are you seeing in terms of results and how are you tracking that ? I'm curious .

Speaker 2 3:02

Yeah . So we have some tweaking to do , I think , on how we're tracking those specific things . We use right now a couple of standardized tests , so like the GAD for anxiety , the PCL5 for PTSD , page Q9 for depression , we also , as an organization , we use Acorn to track our outcomes in general as a treatment . What is that ? Acorn is a tracking program that is used all over the country and it has a pool of at this point , it's big enough that there's a pool of data that we can . Essentially , acorn looks at and measures your patient's success based on this is just one part of it based on what the predictive success is for a patient that comes in with that level of distress and those particular problems . So we can get kind of a graph that shows this is what Acorn predicts their success to be . This is what their success actually is , and it does use the global distress scale . But it also has many other measures . We can look at social , we can look at their work , we can how the patient feels about these things , symptoms , the relationship between the patient and the therapist .

Speaker 2 4:21

So Therapeutic Alliance , therapeutic Alliance , and that's in there . So it tracks all those things . So that's what we use in general . The difficulty is trying to figure out what is helping , because we have so many things that we're doing at all points . For example , they could be getting HBOT , they're definitely getting therapy , they're in residential level of care , so so many services and then they're also getting ketamine , so it's a little difficult to see . Is there depression going down specifically because they're doing ketamine treatment with us , or is it because they're in this healing environment and they're doing so much to all this different work ? Right ?

Speaker 1 4:55

We do a lot for outcomes on the outpatient right Other down that continuum so that you can really see .

Speaker 2 5:04

Long term . What's happening right , and for us it's . You know , we are curious , right . I'm curious about you know , how much is ketamine specifically influencing versus HBOT , versus all those other things ? And these are things that I think we should be asking about and we should be looking at tracking , and that's going to grow , you know , before you know , MDMA might be available and psilocybin might be available , and so it's going to be interesting to see how these medicines really are working .

Speaker 1 5:33

Yeah , well , as we spoke earlier on a previous video about integrated health , right , and if you can just get somebody past the point where they're having tremendous anxiety about certain things , of course it's going to have a great effect on them and their ability to , to the resilience of their long term help .

Speaker 2 6:02

So and it's complicated . I mean , we don't , you know , just in doing work with ketamine , it affects people differently . There's not , it's not . I haven't seen a real standard . I've seen people respond to it very differently . And these are powerful medicines that we're looking at incorporating powerful medicines that have been used for generations by indigenous healers and people who have deep relationships with these medicines , and so there's a lot of question and conversation around how do we ethically , how do we safely , how do we effectively incorporate these very powerful medicines into our Western paradigm ? I'm currently in the psychedelic assisted therapy training with Naropa University , which is an eight month . It's essentially a graduate course . It's an eight month program and some of it's in person and a lot of it's online for the coursework and the reading and all that . But we had our opening retreat and it was very . It really brought up a lot because we had two indigenous healers there . One of them is on the faculty .

Speaker 1 7:05

So you got a chance to to really see the way that this has been done for thousands of years , as opposed to how we're trying to figure out how to use it .

Speaker 2 7:16

Now , and it really there's a risk of it being the bright , shiny new thing , and there's a risk of it being this like magic pill that we all know doesn't really exist , Because that is kind of how our culture does things right .

Speaker 1 7:29

I agree . I think there needs to be more done . More done in data , but data as to tracking what you're doing . You know we talk outhouse all the time . You know everybody and if you walk around this conference hall , everybody will have their idea of outhouse . My opinion that's a problem , right , because if there's not standardized West Chips , now you have your standardized assessments , your GADs and your HP9s and all this , but if you're , if everybody's collecting it in different frequencies , you know different timeframes , or maybe a big problem is you don't get the clients to participate . Your motivation for getting their outcomes in , for surveying them on outcomes , should not be so we have a better understanding of how we get . This should be more about them . Yeah , right , and I think that's one thing that we all miss on . Many people miss on .

Speaker 2 8:33

Yeah .

Speaker 1 8:33

And it's about the client . Yeah , and if you're not using the that outcome data to provide good information to them about their treatment , their recovery , they're not going to continue taking Right .

Speaker 2 8:50

The acorn is good for that because I can show them the graph . But we look at it together . This is in a lot of times , you know we're lucky and the anticipated decrease in distress will . We're way below that and they can see that and they get excited about it , right ? Or we can look at where we've spiked up and what was going on during that time , right . So that's why I like the visual component of that graph , acorn . I mean , if there is a problem with keeping it going after they leave , to see how people are doing in the long term , right . That is a challenge . I think it's a challenge in our industry for everybody . Um , it is .

Speaker 1 9:27

Yeah , are you familiar with David Weigts sock and their recovery capital index ? And not really , I would definitely say . If you're not , I can introduce you . He's somebody that we work with really closely . Yeah , he's looking at recovery capital in three silos , you're so sure you're personal , and your cultural cap . Yeah , how are they doing in these three areas as indicators of quality of life ? You know I talk to people all the time . I say you know people don't go into treatment to stop using a substance or to stop a behavior , right Going to treatment because life has become unmanageable the way they're living it . So why solely looking at symptoms ? We miss the quality of life portion . It sounds like you get . You got that in acorn . One of the things I really like about what David does is it provides instant feedback to the client on where they are in these areas and where their risk factors may be .

Speaker 2 10:33

Yes .

Speaker 1 10:34

And it goes to them . Obviously , it will be helpful for clinician to be able to review this with them , but at the same time , if you're in an outpatient setting , you just want them to get some good information .

Speaker 2 10:46

Absolutely , you know absolutely so I have a podcast called Therapy Unboxed .

Educating Consumers on Behavioral Health

Speaker 1 10:51

Oh , yes , I wanted to ask you .

Speaker 2 10:53

Yeah , and the purpose of that podcast really is to help educate consumers of behavioral health and mental health services , because I think there's an unnecessary shroud of mystery . I think behavioral health , mental health , psychology has sort of been this , like you know , on the side elements of healthcare and it just not enough people know about what we do , why we do what we do , how the process worked . What does CVT mean ? What does DVT mean ? Yes , so my podcast , we go into these things , things that terms that we just throw around all the time as clinicians and we might even benefit from taking a deeper look at it . I agree , and so I have , you know , guests on who are experts .

Speaker 2 11:33

I have somebody who's the advocate for the listeners in case we get a little too clinical and they jump in and they say what does that actually mean on the show , and it gives people an opportunity to really get a deeper understanding so that they can be better consumers , more informed consumers . One of my episodes is actually on psychedelic assisted therapy and I did it with my supervisor in Florida who has already done the max training , and we did actually two parts because there's so much to talk about . So if anybody's Looking for more information on that , even like to check out therapy on box psychedelic system therapy , episodes one and two . I saw it on Spotify , it's on Zed , on Apple , yeah , it's kind of everywhere you can get podcasts .

Speaker 1 12:18

Thanks for tuning in to hatching creativity . We appreciate your support . Please don't forget to like and subscribe until all your friends about the show and remember it's never just about one thing . You , you , you , you , you , you , you , you , you , you .