BROADCASTS.com

In this episode, Joe interviews the Co-Founders of Enosis Therapeutics: researcher and scientist, Agnieszka Sekula; and psychiatrist, clinical advisor to the Australian Psychedelic Society, and leading Australian advocate for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, Dr. Prash P.\xa0

Enosis Therapeutics is a medtech startup that began with the question: how can we use VR \u2013 with or without psychedelics \u2013 to improve mental health outcomes? They feel that the biggest problem with powerful psychedelic experiences is that, once you\u2019re back in reality, it\u2019s oddly difficult to remember the insights and new ideas that were so clear during the experience, and even harder to make connections that lead to concrete change. They believe that the immersive nature of VR and the novelty of unique VR environments creates a sense of presence that can\u2019t be recreated otherwise \u2013 a liminal, in-between state that\u2019s just different enough to allow the patient to feel like they\u2019re back in that non-ordinary state, and therefore more able to anchor their experience and begin to find connections and more clearly understand newfound insights.\xa0

This all happens by the user essentially creating nonlinear, abstract, multi-sensory VR paintings while describing what they remembered; allowing them to revisit these worlds later, bring in therapists (or anyone else) to work inside these environments, and hear their own voice describing what happened, thereby creating a mental map that can be worked with in completely unique ways.\xa0

They talk about the conflict between new technologies and traditionalists; the problems with moving away from psychoanalysis and not treating psychotherapy as a process; how VR could improve the efficacy of therapy (and improve therapists\u2019 lives); how it could replace models of repeated dosage; how VR could generate analytics to actually quantify success in mental health treatment; and how (whether psychedelics are used or not) culture needs to bring the psychedelic way of thinking to mental health.

www.psychedelicstoday.com