Psychedelics, Dissociation & Trauma

[00:00:13] Welcome to Brainforest Café with Dennis McKenna. [00:00:22] Dennis McKenna: Steve Elfrik, a pioneer with over 40 years of experience in psychedelic medicine and integrative healing, is the founder of ohmterra. In this podcast, Steve focuses on his groundbreaking hypothesis of psychedelic iatrogenic structural dissociation, which was recently published in Frontiers of Psychology, co authored by Leigh Bergen. Drawing from his own deeply personal journey from a transformative yet destabilizing ayahuasca ceremony in a sacred southern Wisconsin valley, to years of navigating dissociative trauma, Steve shares how these experiences led him to explore how psychedelics can deconstruct dissociative processes and potentially release trauma too quickly. With his expertise in legal psilocybin facilitation in Oregon and psycholytic somatic integration therapy using low dose ketamine for PTSD and complex ptsd, Steve offers unique insights into the importance of cautious titrated psychedelic sessions and somatic integration. Join him as he recounts his personal story, unpacks the science behind PISD and discusses the transformative yet sometimes challenging nature of psychedelic therapy. Steve, welcome to the Brainforest Café. Hey Dennis. [00:02:06] Steve Elfrink: Wonderful to be here. Dennis, it's always, always, always, always a pleasure at any capacity to be with you. [00:02:13] Dennis McKenna: Well, you're too kind, really, but we've shared quite a few experiences over the decades and when I think back, we've seen each other now 10 years, 15 years something. [00:02:27] Steve Elfrink: It's like 15 years now. We're getting old and wise. [00:02:32] Dennis McKenna: That's a long time. And you've gone through some changes as we all have. You moved from Viroqua, Wisconsin to Oregon, and you created a whole new career for yourself in this psychedelic therapy role. And in part, was that motivated by your experiences with the dissociation? [00:03:01] Steve Elfrink: Yeah, I think going back a little bit, like just the changes that, you know, my life's gone through. I think for any of us who are involved in any level of psychedelic, you know, exploration, change is part of the game and different level, levels of transformation. And I think sometimes, you know, those levels of transformation can be incredibly challenging and very dark. And, you know, sometimes it's not all rainbows, puppies and unity consciousness, but I think, you know, there's value in all that. And then the key is, you know, just really, you know, the level of integration support, the level of really understanding what's happening. And I think for me, what, you know, part of what happened in my life and in all my psychedelic explorations was, you know, a lot of challenging experiences, not fully understanding why, you know, those kept happening. And then Going through, you know, a real challenging experience with, you know, that ayahuasca session that, you know about. And so, yeah, today it would be kind of fun to just kind of explore some of these, you know, challenging experiences. And then this, you know, hypothesis like you mentioned, that just got published on psychedelic iatrogenic structural dissociation, which is a mouthful, right? Help start to frame, you know, when people get into destabilized situations. Like for me, it was a year long with no real understanding, no framework. What I hope for with that model, that it gives a framework, one for anyone going through a very challenging post psychedelic experience and also for practitioners who, you know, have kind of a roadmap or, you know, the framework to understand what's happening to this client who's showing up at their door and incredibly destabilized and what to do with them. And for me, you know, just awareness or having that framework can help a lot on just calming the system because I think can what can happen in those destabilized situations is just a lack of understanding and, you know, which just begets more misunderstanding and more chaos and more confusion and more overwhelm. [00:05:13] Dennis McKenna: Right. Well, as we sometimes say in a simpler way, set and setting is important. You have to properly structure the experience so it doesn't go off the rails. And particularly when you're dealing with these deep, transformative type of experiences. And I think you're perhaps not unique, but not all psychedelic therapists have. Have seen it from the other side. You've done both. So that is a tremendous qualification as sort of your credibility as a therapist. Because you know what, people having these spiritual crises, you know what they're faced with and maybe how to resolve them, you've had to do it. There was no one, when you underwent these experiences that was. That was holding up a sign saying this, go this direction. You had to figure it out for yourself. [00:06:17] Steve Elfrink: Yeah, that's. Yeah, I've always been. I call myself a psychedelic guinea pig because also I could be like the poster boy for challenging experiences. And for me, it all goes back to all this huge level of trauma I was dealing with that I had no idea. Starting with birth trauma all the way up till, know, 23 years old. And trigger warning for this whole podcast, there may be references to suicide, sexual abuse, nothing gnarly, but, you know, this huge trauma history that was just buried. And you know, something I do want to talk about today is dissociation. And then I want to go back to one thing that you said, Dennis, around set and setting, because it is Mission critical. But even in like the perfect set and setting, like my ayahuasca experience, which we'll explore a little bit, was the perfect set and setting, the ideal situation. Friends and colleagues, a trained ayahuascaro from Don Jose Campos, Medicine from Don Jose Campos. So the perfect set and setting. And still, even with that, things can go south. And so that's the one thing, the unpredictable setting. [00:07:25] Dennis McKenna: Except the set was not quite right. If the set is you, who. [00:07:30] Steve Elfrink: Yeah, yeah. And what's also fascinating with that is my set at that time was solid and I had no again, but I had so much buried. What's fascinating, this will be a good segue into dissociation is just how much was buried and how much was under this like, lid of dissociation and then how much started to start to emerge. But it was all this stuff I had no clue about, no awareness whatsoever. And that's why he's, you know, you. [00:08:00] Dennis McKenna: Were unprepared for that. That, that, that was the last thing you expected because you were experienced, you were a psychonaut. You'd have many experiences, although not with ayahuasca. Not so much with ayahuasca. [00:08:14] Steve Elfrink: You did the, you know, like 1200 micrograms of LSD and 1600 and not to break, you know, and the 25 grams of mushrooms because I didn't know. Heroic dose. I know there was a five in there, so I thought maybe it must be 25. So this was back in the early days. So a lot of experience with psilocybin LSD prior to the ayahuasca situation, like three ibogaine journeys under my belt. Experience with peyote, large doses of peyote, you know, 5 Meo, DMT, NN, DMT. So I considered myself an experienced user and, you know, psychonaut and very comfortable in those spaces, you know, with friends. A lot of sessions, you know, hundreds of sessions on my own, a lot of sessions of like ketamine, LSD combined together, all this just, you know, trying to break through to the other side, but also in hindsight, trying to break away from, you know, all the inner turmoil that was in my life. [00:09:09] Dennis McKenna: So did those experiences not help you to explore those, or did it effectively insulate you from retrieving those kinds of traumatic memories? I mean, I would think with these, what you really have to call enormous doses of some of these other things, it would have knocked something loose before. But it took ayahuasca to do that for you. [00:09:38] Steve Elfrink: I think it was a gradual descent because I think what folks, when there Is these levels of dissociation you can manage, manage, manage, manage, manage. And it gets harder and harder. And for me, you know, there was kind of this slow degradation of psychedelic experiences getting, you know, tougher and tougher because I started, you know, taking LSD when I was 16 and then by the time I was in my late 20s, I was starting to shift, but also had, you know, a profound experience with a large dose of LSD that really changed my life of when I was a place of suicidality and it shifted me out of that. But then I just found that, you know, they're getting more challenge. You know, my 3 to 5 gram doses were getting harder and there's more panic coming in and more anxiety coming in and it was just starting to get more difficult which were, you know, all little signposts of things to come and even, you know, stop using cannabis when I was like 19 because I was getting so paranoid and I just hated cannabis and just very challenging and ended up having almost like psychotic break from a cannabis cookie in my 30s, but was also a precursor for what I started, what I experienced with ayahuasca. So there was some of these little inklings because that was like all about my head, the cannabis cookie. It felt like my head was being crushed, my eyes were popping out of my head. I thought I was dying, I thought I was poisoned. All from a cannabis cookie. But when we'll talk about this more but like cannabis can break through dissociation very well and all this stuff starts to emerge. But what I'd like to do, Dennis, is switch to kind of talking about dissociation and what even with these, you know, big doses of these different medicines, I wasn't getting to the, you know, these big breakthroughs. I was getting little inklings of something was up, but it wasn't, you know, until really ayahuasca. And then, you know, another big thing that happened in my life, you know, after that for quite a few years was near death of my son, which I was also wasn't a psychedelic experience, but it was my 18 year old son is maybe going to die. So it was this very, very in, you know, crisis moment. [00:11:59] Dennis McKenna: Dissociative perhaps. [00:12:01] Steve Elfrink: Yeah. So one thing I want to talk about, I want to any questions on like history and then because I do kind of want to segue in talking to. You're starting this conversation about the psychedelic iatrogenic structural dissociation. But any questions for you, Dennis, before moving into the world of dissociation? [00:12:20] Dennis McKenna: Okay, well, they will come up as we talk about It I want you to lead the conversation because there are certain things you want to, you want to be sure to discuss. So they're here. [00:12:34] Steve Elfrink: Okay. [00:12:35] Dennis McKenna: And I also, I was going to. [00:12:36] Steve Elfrink: Say, Dennis, sorry to interrupt you, but recognizing this isn't probably in one of the more normal podcasts of any podcast on psychedelics, because it's deeper into the world of trauma, deeper into this thing called dissociation that a lot of people don't know about, and deeper into trauma, you know, a whole different perspective on trauma and how it can show up in psychedelic sessions. So this paper, as stated in the bio that is published in journal or Frontiers in Psychology, was born out of this ayahuasca experience. And I'll go back to that a little more to kind of talk about what that was like. But first I want to kind of dive into this concept of psychedelic iatrogenic structural dissociation by starting with talking about what is dissociation, because I keep bringing up dissociation. And for me it was the biggest key to understanding, you know, my life. Because for me also, you know, going way back, suicidal at age 4, 4 or 5, I suicidal, praying to God, kill me to my sleeve. You know, I had, you know, suicide attempts when I was 19, suicide attempts at 23. So there's all this why, why, why in my life, because I don't remember anything or anything. Just I was just very, very depressed. And I was always wondering why. And so part of like being the psychedelic guinea pig and going through, you know, challenging experience, especially later in my life when I was just going through hellacious, you know, even though the FDA psilocybin study of these hellacious sessions. But I just kept going because I wanted to know why, why was I depressed? Why was I suicidal so early? So this path that I've been on ended up in this world of going more of focusing on body, focus focusing on what's known as fight, flight or freeze. So just trying to understand a different perspective on body because I was always focused on mind insight, trying to get the insights and download the insights, all that stuff. And all these psychedelic experiences. I would have epiphanies, awakenings, non dual realities, unity consciousness. But still the depression would live on. You know, it would have a peak experience in six months of great, maybe a year of great. And then the crash again. So this stuff would just keep emerging. So just in my relentless pursuit, got more involved with more like a psychedelic somatic approach. So using low dose psychedelics. I'll talk more about this later. And through the ayahuasca experience and through, you know, further work, but more of low dose psychedelic somatic, really starting to under understand dissociation from the inside out. So what is dissociation? So we all experience it sometimes many times a day. And all this everything, whether it's trauma, psychedelic experiences, there's a spectrum. So there's a spectrum of dissociation. So dissociation can be as simple as just zoning out. You know, he's staring out the window and just realize, whoa, where'd I go? So we can just kind of go into little mini dissociative places. But what happens with anyone with trauma, especially with young kids, and the earlier it starts, the more intense it can be as far as the levels of dissociation. And this I'll keep brief. And we could spend two hours on this, just this topic right here. So dissociation is a protective mechanism. So what happens if someone goes, Everyone knows about fight or flight. You know, you're being chased by someone and you go into fight or flight, where heart rate increases, fast thinking, pupils dilate, and you're like, you know, in panic or ready to fight. But that fight or flight, filled with adrenaline, right? But we can't sustain that. So what happens? There's some people know about fight, flight or freeze. So what happens if that. Fight, flight, fight or flight, we can't sustain that. So the body goes to a point of overwhelm. So it's like, can't do this, can't do this. I can't do this. Because literally the body will die if it keeps sustaining that. So then the body switches into a dissociative state. So a freeze. And in that freeze state, it's actually an endogenous opioid dump. So naturally occurring opioids, it's about seven different neurotransmitters, equal to about seven milligrams of morphine, which would be equivalent to. If you go to the ER with a chainsaw accident, they're gonna give you about 7 milligrams of morphine. This comes out of Bessel van der Kolk's work. And so. But that dissociation is a protective place because you can't sustain what's going on. So you're literally go into this, I call it going poof. So all of a sudden you're there, and then all of a sudden you're literally drugged. So you can go into a moderate dissociative state. If the abuse starts getting worse, you can go into like a deep, deep dissociative state. And then you're Just blank. Numb. [00:17:44] Dennis McKenna: This dissociative state, the fight, flight, or freeze reaction, does the freeze. Does that bear a resemblance to catatonia? Is that effectively what catatonia is? Yeah, there's no choice. You just freeze. [00:18:03] Steve Elfrink: Yeah, but you're literally flooded with, you know, you're in the opioid dump. But it's the body, so it's called, you know, go from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic system. So because when you're in that, you know, fight orf flight, blood's going, you know, and it's an evolutionary, you know, function to go from, you know, pumping blood out to shutting down the system. So what happens is, you know, everything kind of goes cold. The brain memory function shuts down. This is a huge point. So just normal memory gets wiped out, but the body just keeps recording everything. And there's a famous book back to Bessel van der Kolk, how his body keeps the score. So, you know, in a traumatic event. And a lot of people will say, you know, again, the trigger warnings throughout this discussion, like someone, you know, opened up a hotel room door and saw a guy standing there. And the next thing they know, the police are there. So what happens is, you know, there's a traumatic event, and then flooded with, you know, the opioids, everything just shuts down. And that person can be just there and not there. And people talk, you know, going through assault will say, you know, I was witnessing from witnessing myself in the assault from above. But they're just detached from their bodies. They're gone. [00:19:25] Dennis McKenna: That seemed to be the most effective way to deal with a crisis situation. [00:19:31] Steve Elfrink: It's a survival mechanism. It came in as a survival mechanism. It's a defense mechanism. And then where it gets kind of not wild, but more challenging is if it's a young child or even a baby, like someone with meat, like me, who had birth trauma. The dissociation can start early, and it becomes this imprinted, known safe place. So there's stress response. Oh, I go dissociative because dissociation is safe. It's comfortable because you're not feeling anything. But the challenge is everything that happened, you know, because once you know, the body's recording. So if there's, you know, that assault or whatever it is, but you've gone dissociative in that freeze place, the safe place, the body's still recording everything that's happening to you in minute detail. And then what happens, though, is all that lives on in the body so. [00:20:31] Dennis McKenna: For me, is carried as a somatic memory. Of some kind. [00:20:35] Steve Elfrink: Yeah. Yes. [00:20:36] Dennis McKenna: Yeah. [00:20:36] Steve Elfrink: But it's all subconscious. [00:20:38] Dennis McKenna: It's all. [00:20:39] Steve Elfrink: Well, it's actually what's called primary conscious, which is, you know, where all these, you know, this non rational, non linear, timeless place exists where all this stuff gets tucked away. And then if there's someone like with complex ptsd, which, you know, typically someone with complex ptsd, it's, you know, multiple events over multiple years. But all these multiple events over multiple years get tucked away. Tucked away, tucked away in this dissociative place. But again, it's a survival mechanism. It keeps us safe, it keeps us protected, but it also, in the long run, starts to hurt us. Because what happens? Bodies. [00:21:19] Dennis McKenna: Oops. [00:21:20] Steve Elfrink: Go ahead, Dennis. [00:21:21] Dennis McKenna: Well, there's no way to. It's suppressed, basically. I mean, it's still there. I would think it would accumulate and ultimately tear, harm. The other thing that keeps coming up for me is if in your dissociative state, if there's an actual threat, physical threat, if somebody is about to attack you, raising doesn't seem to be an appropriate reaction because you can't resist. I mean, they can go ahead and attack you, kill you or whatever. [00:21:58] Steve Elfrink: But again, it's at that point just because the body can't sustain that fight or flight. [00:22:03] Dennis McKenna: Right. [00:22:05] Steve Elfrink: So it's only a survival mechanism. But then the challenging again is. The challenge again is with a young kid, they can learn that so quickly. And then. But also the other interesting thing with all this is the body seeks homeostasis. [00:22:21] Dennis McKenna: Right? Right. [00:22:22] Steve Elfrink: Body wants 98.6 degrees. Body wants to take in oxygen, get rid of carbon dioxide, eat the food, move it out, thermogenesis, all that stuff. But also body wants to process trauma. So all this held reactivity, held charge, evolutionarily, if that's a word, you know, back in the day, you're like, if, say any animal, like a gazelle gets attacked by a lion, they tried to get away, now they're being attacked by the lion. And so their point of overwhelm, they go dissociative. But then that lion hears hyenas coming after the cubs. So the lion leaves. But now the, you know, that gazelle pops up out of that mild or moderate dissociative state into more kind of a fight or flight to get away, the flight. But then what the gazelle will do is then go off into the bush somewhere and they, they off gas, all this, like, you know, fear, panic and all the. So there's videos of these gazelles. I'm not trying to mock them, but, you know, their flags are going, they're frothing at the mouth and all, you know, you know, these sounds are coming out of them, but they're processing what happen to them. But with us and our big brains, all this stuff just. We don't process. So it just keeps getting packed in there and packed in there. [00:23:39] Dennis McKenna: I see. [00:23:40] Steve Elfrink: And then what the. This is where I want to go into, you know, so that's kind of dissociation in a very nutshell version of this defense mechanism. Defense mechanism. I can't even talk today. Defense mechanism. System to protect us. But then this is where, when I want to go into the paper, you know, first of all, I want to mention the term iatrogenic. Everyone knows psychedelic and then the next word iatrogenic. And a lot of people don't know what iatrogenic. And in this paper I'm using it kind of an expanded use. So I'm taking some liberty. [00:24:14] Dennis McKenna: Count me in. What does iatrogenic actually mean? [00:24:18] Steve Elfrink: So it's a Greek word. It comes from iatros, which is like healer, and then genesis, which is beginning or source. So it basically means harm from a healer. So. And it's used primarily in the medical world. A lot of times in surgery, if someone goes in and has an appendectomy and ends up with sepsis or an infection, that sepsis would be iatrogenic. Sepsis. So it wasn't there before, but it was created by the physician or the healer. [00:24:50] Dennis McKenna: Okay, okay. [00:24:51] Steve Elfrink: And then so it just means creating harm, basically. [00:24:55] Dennis McKenna: And I've got pushback saying position initiated or healer initiated harm. [00:25:01] Steve Elfrink: Yeah, and so I'm kind of saying, and this is a little rub for some people, a little controversial, that the psychedelic is kind of creating harm. You know, you're going within the intent of a spiritual experience or healing. But what's going to happen or can happen? What happened to me, what happened to, you know, definitely other folks is they can go into this incredibly destabilized place. And a lot of times in that destabilization is suicidality and suicide. And so what's important to know, and I'm not saying like psychedelics are bad. What I'm saying is for certain people, they can be harmful. And a part of that is also, if they don't have the framework of understanding, they don't have the support. Like in my year, ayahuasca thingy, I was suicidal. I was very close, very close to killing myself because I had. I was so out of it, of this place of depersonalization and derealization. Thinking of going Insane. And all this physical pain that I was going through where it felt like my body, my head's going in one direction and my body's the other direction. So there can be harm. So I know, and I've gotten some pushback on that using Iatrogenic, but I'm sticking with it. And I'm not. And again, I'm not saying psychedelics are bad, but I just want to really bring awareness on one level that, you know, for some people psychedelics can be harmful and it's a small percentage, but it's still a percentage. [00:26:27] Dennis McKenna: Right? Right. [00:26:29] Steve Elfrink: That's the Iatrogenic. And briefly we can talk about structural dissociation. So there's something I needed in the paper that is a kind of, it's a therapeutic understanding model of, you know, studies and science behind it around structural dissociation. And it's the closest thing. And when I was going through my transitions and explorations, you know, ayahuasca and forward of what I was dealing with, and it fit the bill the most. So structural dissociation is just tied to the simple thing where when anyone keeps going into these dissociative states, there's a part of them or a self of them that gets kind of, I call it cleaved off. So separated. So you have kind of a split. And it's not the classic like split personality or multiple personality, but it's basically where there's, you know, for me it was like that infant to 2 year old Steve got split off. So that dissociation creates different structures or what they call in their world of action items, which I don't agree with that term, but that's what they're called. But it's these different parts of us that just get, you know, separated from us. So and that that's done again is it's another survival mechanism. So if, you know, a young child is going through severe sexual abuse, physical abuse, but then has to go to school, has to go to church, sit at dinner next to the person that's their perpetrator, in order to survive, they have to take part of them. And that traumatized part, or in structural dissociation theory, it's the emotional part, I just called it little Steve. They have to get kind of separated. So they just kind of become this entity that gets pushed to the side. But that entity lives under this dissociative lid. So there's just this kind of split of selves. So for me, my life was there was Steve forward facing Steve and then there's all these little Steves since I had trauma starting at birth up to literally 23. And so this obviously, I mean, could. [00:28:43] Dennis McKenna: Processes like this be at the root of something like multiple personalities? [00:28:51] Steve Elfrink: At the root, yes. In multiple. There's these extreme cases that may be a little different, but I think so much is related to trauma. And also, like, I want to go back to something around dissociation and how, you know, all this stuff. So back to the homeostasis part where body is always trying to process this stuff. So what was showing up for me, like, as depression, you know, anxiety and anxiety, suicidal ideation. What I'd be, I'd call being in the mud if I'd get in an argument with someone and it was overwhelming and I just go poof. But body's always looking for this way to try to move this out. So like anxiety, if someone's really anxious and just out, you know, they call it general anxiety disorder. Excuse me, but there's just this anxiety and there's no reason for anxiety. But it's body typically, it's just trying to process what's in that. I used to, I just call it trauma ball or that, you know, dissociative child who, you know, whatever that child's holding, even with that lid of dissociation, keeping everything safe, all that energy, all that held anxiety is always just trying to eke out. I call it off gassing. Like the analogy of if you had a balloon full of, you know, just kept filling this balloon with trauma air or with trauma and then. But you know how you take a balloon and you know it's filled with air and then you squeeze the top and it just e slowly eeks out of there. That's kind of like what trauma does. It just keeps on trying to move out, but it's slow and annoying and creates anxiety and depression is, you know, part of a moderate dissociation. But then, you know, there's a process that I started working with that just allows big bulk movement of that, you know, that energy to come out. So back to structural dissociation. Another way to look at this is. So there's. So with any of us with trauma, we start to. It's again, it's purely out of survival. It's a psychobiological thing that we've figured out brain wise and body wise, but we create these. Another analogy is I use a lot is just, you know, there's the forward facing house, but then inside the house is all, you know, the sub basement. And in the sub basement is another basement. And that's where like you know, this infant Steve lived and this other room was three to five year old Steve and then this other room was six to eight year old Steve. And none of those Steves know about each other and I don't know about them as an adult. And that's how structural dissociation works is that all these place or parts and you know, times of our life get separated from us, but they're constantly affecting us every day through suicidality, depression, anxiety, everything that, you know, folks like me, we're dealing with and then the adult trying to manage it all, not knowing this exists. So questions on that Dennis, That's a lot. [00:31:57] Dennis McKenna: No, it's a fascinating thing. This is really not at all what I expected, but it's very interesting what keeps coming up as you're talking, I'm wondering. So the psychedelics can trigger this, but can they also heal it? Can they be used as tools to recover and recover all of these different cells from different stages of your life and somehow bring them back together into a whole single person that is healed? Because it's kind of the basis of psychotherapy and, and shamanic therapy to a certain extent. [00:32:45] Steve Elfrink: Yeah. So what gets fascinating here is this is a great segue to psychedelics. So the world of. And this is something, one thing I'm grateful today Dennis, is this opportunity to get the word out more about dissociation and how it works and how it can show up in psychedelic sessions because it can show up in different ways. And I'm going to talk about two ways that psychedelics can affect someone like me who was, you know, had all this, these different rooms with little Steves everywhere, from structural dissociation, inner psychedelics. And for some folks like me, you know, psychedelic, you know, session after session after session, no problem. Because I've got a very strong ego structure. [00:33:27] Dennis McKenna: Uh huh. [00:33:28] Steve Elfrink: Got like rock solid defense mechanism. Many of us with trauma, we build this fortress to protect the little ones because part of it, we don't want to go there because then there just lives, you know, for me, you know, sadistic torture, just hell runs. And so we do everything possible to not go there. And it's all subconscious or primary consciousness, timeless, non rational, nonlinear. So enter psychedelics. So two things can happen. I mean one, three things. One, you can have a positive experience. I had many positive experiences. I had many, many, many very challenging experiences. But one, so you can have a positive experience. Two, there's something called the non responder. So a lot of times the non responder, strong ego structure or not your time or you know, the trust, the medicine thing, you're not ready for it or you need more medicine. But a lot of times what can happen is that non responder can be in any of us with trauma, we can go. We sometimes live a lot of our lives in a different dissociative state. So we just, that's what we get used to. And you can kind of sustain that. So what can happen? Someone takes the psychedelic, there's that come up experience, like, whoa, holy shit, here it comes. And with that, someone with trauma and dissociation. Sometimes that can equal, ooh, a stress response. I know what to do. I flood myself with opioids to get safe. So like for me, before I understood all this work, I could do, take mdma because MDMA is pretty sensitive to dissociation and have no effect whatsoever. So I can take 125 milligrams of pretty pure, as pure as you could get. MDMA, do the booster, be with my friends, they're in it, doing it in a therapeutic container. And I'm 100% sober. And so what can happen is there's that come up my brain know what to do, go into, you know, this endogenous opioid. And so I've now flooded myself with 7 milligrams of morphine and wiped out the effect of the, the sil or of the mdma. I saw this in my underground days with psilocybin, like, hmm, they've taken like three grams of mushrooms and there's no response. And give them a 2 gram boost booster and they feel a little high. I had a friend, you know, doing ayahuasca. I saw someone, the same person, um, you know, with ayahuasca I just feel a little high, but not much. So the non responder on the one end can be, you know, this is kind of the better outcome. At least they're not getting taken out, which is the third option. But the one thing, you know where I want to throw out because a lot of facilitators will, someone's a non responder. Just like I did this, you can keep upping the dose. But I've also seen and worked with clients who, whereas with someone not no response, up the dose, up the dose and then maybe it finally starts to break through, but then it breaks through to too much. And that's where people can get destabilized. [00:36:29] Dennis McKenna: Right? Right. [00:36:31] Steve Elfrink: I recommend caution on upping the dose to non responders in general. And I know, you know, there's different, you know, some of this will be Controversial people won't agree with, I'm saying. But I definitely err more on the side of caution of someone who's been through challenging experiences. Any questions before I go to the third gnarly bad option? [00:36:55] Dennis McKenna: Yeah, so tell me about. I mean it seems like, yeah, it seems like in the therapeutic situation, simply upping the dose is not necessarily the right choice for the therapist. If the person is a non responder and you try to and you up the dose so there's still a non responder, you up it more. Clearly there's something going on that simply upping the dose is not going to fix, is not going to be helpful. Would a different medicine be helpful? I was thinking, for example, a situation where someone is not responding to say psilocybin and you up the, the dose and they're still a non responder and then you say, okay, let's hit them with DMT or 5 Methoxy DMT. That's not necessarily something you want to do, but I can see where a person might think that that's just what they need. They need something to help them break through, but maybe break through to the wrong place, not where they want to break through to. [00:38:09] Steve Elfrink: And I know, and I know people have done that and have positive experience and helped people. So I want to acknowledge that. But also it's to me a little bit roulette ish. And I know people will like, if someone's a psilocybin non responder, give them cannabis, which will typically Cannabis like in any substance. If someone's a non responder, you give them cannabis, you're likely to break through because again, for whatever reason, cannabis can just part the seeds of dissociation and go on in. But there's where the roulette is too much too soon. And for me, if like, if I ever, you know, doing a psilocybin session, someone's a non responder, I'm pulling way back and going deeper into, you know, trauma history or trying to figure out what's going on here and. But I do really extensive screening with clients and try to avoid that whole world. But I want to in watching time here. So one thing I want to talk about when things go south and how psychedelics can create this iatrogenic structural dissociation and that's where there's the extreme destabilized, you know, and it's again, it's a spectrum and you know, I lost, you know, the spectrum is, you know, it clears after a day of destabilization or three days to you know, suicide. And I lost, you know, my daughter's. My oldest daughter's what we call spirit mom. Instead of a godmother. Her husband committed suicide after ayahuasca ceremony in Peru where experienced user with mainly Wachuma psilocybin first ayahuasca session. And I'm not huge, I'm not bashing ayahuasca, you know, beautiful medicine, but all these medicines, we gotta be careful and we gotta acknowledge there can be challenging experiences. We gotta acknowledge there can be destabilization. So that's someone who on the extreme end, you know, they got so overwhelmed by what came up. And for me that overwhelmed place is all sudden those little. All those doors, you know, that are holding these little ones, they can all get ripped open or even if one of them gets ripped open and all of a sudden these emotions come flooding out. Especially if it's early childhood stuff. Like anything three and younger than non verbal is really hard to deal with because you've. What you've got is, you know, someone like say birth trauma, severe birth trauma or sexual abuse at an early age, which unfortunately can happen included where that child can't. They don't have, you know, something really bad's happening to say a baby and they don't understand even, you know, so such a primitive brain. It's not like this is, you know, fear, this is panic, this is betrayal, this is. There's no delineation of this emotional charge they're holding. [00:41:02] Dennis McKenna: Right? Right. [00:41:03] Steve Elfrink: So that can come up. So all of a sudden you know, and how psychedelics can work, you know, they, you know, break down the default mode network which can. Part of that can be, you know, the defense mechanism. This whole system, strong ego structure that someone's built can get destroyed. It can be just the emotional availability gets amplified. It can, whatever somehow it works through the dissociation and goes down in there. But now what you have is this access to those doors. And see again, if it's pre verbal and it has no meaning to it at that age. And that spark of energy starts to come up and all of a sudden it gets amplified by ayahuasca. LSD named the psychedelic. So we know they're always amplifiers. Now you have this mind trying to make meaning of this place and that a lot of times it feels insane, that energy. Because you have this baby who's in fight or flight and under threat. And it's this feeling of insanity. But the insanity gets amplified and then there's the mind trying to make sense of it. So that's where it gets really tricky. But at any of these ages it can get tricky. And so what can happen is anything, once that emerges, you know, someone can be just totally taken over by that. You know, I can think my friend who, you know, committed suicide there, he was taken over by whatever age emerged in hindsight and you think you're going crazy. So I want to kind of, this might be a nice bridge to kind of what I was experiencing from. And again, I'm not trying to pick on ayahuasca and I, I respect your, your relationship with it. I respect anyone who, who's listening to this, their relationship with it. It just happens. I mean just whatever reason, that's what happened to me. [00:42:51] Dennis McKenna: Yeah. In respect to that. Can I ask you a question? Did we. In the, the clinical study of psilocybin at University of Wisconsin, that was after your experience with ayahuasca, right. Your dissociative experience with ayahuasca, that all happened after that, is that right? Yep, that's better. Dose escalation study so you took levels of psilocybin by injection that were calculated to be about as, about as much as any sane person would take. You know, that was the point of the experiment was to see what the level was, you know, how high you could go in the dose. And you had none of these problems with this, with psilocybin or did you? [00:43:46] Steve Elfrink: Yeah, so yeah, I'll go into that because it's a fascinating story. So one I just want to. Just for the record, it wasn't an injection, it was just pills. You like the classic. [00:43:59] Dennis McKenna: Okay, okay, well don't, don't let me, you know, don't let me steer you the wrong way. I just wanted, because I want to. [00:44:06] Steve Elfrink: Go to that because it's all fascinating. I mean that's where this, you know, I'm a great case study here. [00:44:14] Dennis McKenna: Right. [00:44:14] Steve Elfrink: Those were very, very challenging experiences. And. But yeah, not as challenging as ayahuasca, I think. I mean the tip. A lot of the folks I work with, because I work with folks who have gone through challenging experiences and a lot. It's rare for psilocybin for whatever reason more common with ayahuasca. 5 Meo DMT. But even I, you know, I worked with a client who took mdma. Well, and also lsd not. But LSD is another common one. But MDMA wasn't working and then took cannabis and then broke through into the rooms of that one. So it can happen with any medicine. But I think what I've seen More often is Ayahuasca 5 Neo are more destabilizing or can be. And I think that for whatever reason, they can go into that room better than other medicines or those rooms. So I'll keep my. I just want to watch our time here. Dennis, my ayahuasca story brief. I don't want this to be like trip report, but it's relevant to this. And also, I want folks who are destabilized to hear kind of the. Some of the stuff I was dealing with to maybe some recognition of, oh, my God, that's what I'm dealing with. One thing I want to, like, as we're going into the kind of what happens to someone. I want to like anyone listening to this, there's nothing wrong with you. You know, if you're in a destabilized situation right now, there's nothing wrong with you. And you're like, what are you crazy? I'm losing my freaking mind. But what really helped me as I was going through all this was understanding that it's a biological process. Your body's trying to process this trauma. It's trying anything possible to move it out, but it can be very challenging. It can be overwhelming, but starting to just understand that there's a path through. You're not going crazy. You're not insane. You're having, you know, this challenging experience of your body doing everything to process. You're having a biological response to your past. For me, what happened? So the actual ceremony was beautiful. So I did three nights, you know, the classic three nights of. With ayahuasca. And again, veteran to all these different experiences, had done ayahuasca before, but I wasn't an experienced ayahuasca user. This would have been my first. Second. My first dose of the three nights was my third time with ayahuasca. Okay, the first night, somewhat uneventful. You know, I didn't go back for a second dose or anything, but manageable. The second night was the big night, but it was the same dose I had the first night. But it was classic ayahuasca. It was, you know, I had, you know, lots of snakes going through me. You know, it wasn't freaking, you know, snakes through my nose, snakes through my mouth, snakes going everywhere. I was playing didgeridoo during the ceremony, and snakes were coming out of the didgeridoo. Shamanic battles with three hyperdimensional entities. It was a condor flying over the Andes, and I was supposed to learn. What's the shape language? Quechua. I was supposed to learn that. I mean, I mean it was like a beautiful experience and but for me it wasn't. You know, I was always interested in more healing, more deep work and you know, I got it. Got it. But so I rolled through that and then the third night, some nausea. I never purged, but it's like wanted to, but it was, you know, not quite there. But I rolled through it like okay, you know, pretty, pretty cool. But you know, beautiful music and you know, just, you know, the setting, you know, that setting, beautiful place and with my friends and you know, puppy piles after session and beautiful and know, wonderful food afterwards. So it was all a beautiful experience overall. I mean some challenging, but not nothing like I've been through. So much more challenging than those three nights. [00:48:08] Dennis McKenna: Right. [00:48:08] Steve Elfrink: But for me, what's fascinating here was a week later, so I made it through and then a week later in Roko, Wisconsin, in November, raking my leaves like you do. And all of a sudden I just started to feel like, you know, that the come up experience where like kind of feels like I just drank a cup of ayahuasca. So a little like, you know, nervous rush coming up and I just like, maybe it's like with ibogaine, how it kind of like says hello maybe two weeks later, three weeks later, the next day. So I just sat down, kind of just moved through. Wasn't a big deal. But then this is where my life changed. That night I was talking to a friend and all of a sudden I couldn't really understand what they're saying. All of a sudden I start to feel this like, here we go. And I tried to talk and I couldn't really talk. And then I made it up to my bedroom. But by the time I got to my bedroom, my body is starting to like not convulse, but shake. And then also this is where I got the first experience of where it felt like my body was going in one direction and my head was being pulled in the other direction. And this physical pain of my head being pulled off from my body and then the panic of my head getting pulled off and the pain from it, and then the terror could be at the panic and et cetera, et cetera. So, and this was something that would happen anywhere from like that lasted about four hours and then for about nine months I would go anywhere from, you know, three minutes to eight hours of this experience and it was out of the blue. But also I started to experience something that's common in structural dissociation and destabilization, something called depersonalization. Also derealization this is where I knew I was Steve, but I wasn't sure who Steve was. I knew I was on planet Earth, but I wasn't sure what planet Earth was. I also couldn't. Like I would see my kids watching a documentary on dinosaurs and also just seeing dinosaurs. I'd just be like, you know, panic attack. But part of me is going, I'm an adult. Why am I having a panic attack of a, you know, about a dinosaur? So there's this place of this destabilization. I also think of the pilot in Oregon who, you know, took mushrooms. It was all in the news. Pilot took mushrooms and then like three days later tried to crash a plane because he was a pilot himself in the jump seat and took the controls and tried to like crash the plane. Like. But he was saying I wanted to find out what was real. And there's this place of this derealization depersellation. You don't know what's real. And it's kind of crazy making. But what happens to these folks, what happened to me and what I was dealing with? I'm going to kind of cut to the chase here, but for a year I was looping in birth trauma and where. So I was forceps delivery, a breach flipped by three men, forceps delivery, pulled out A forceps delivery is where they go into the birth canal and grab you by the head and then pull you out with these forceps. Then born with. I got my birth records to confirm all or discover all this birth cord around my neck or the umbilical cord around my neck. And APGAR score of three, you know, one to ten, ten, baby three, not so much. Had to be resuscitated the next day. Intubated and resuscitated. So I had this incredible traumatic birth. But I was like looping in that for a year. [00:51:40] Dennis McKenna: This was not all the time. This came and went, it came and. [00:51:44] Steve Elfrink: Went, but was there to different degrees was this depersonalization, derealization. Thinking I'm going insane and think I'm going crazy. And also never knowing when else I'm like here I get taken out and I had friends, like if they got a 911 text for me, I'd have someone come over. Because it got to the point something's like in nine months and I'm dealing with this still and thinking I'm going crazy, thinking I'm never going to get out of this. I'm going to lose my mind. I'll never be normal dad to my kids. That's where like the Suicidality at nine months. You know, there's one day in the shower where that kicked in and being ripped in two and it's getting worse and I'm reaching for the razor blade because I'm like I can't do this anymore. I mean it got to that level and then. But the place, it's just this D. Yeah, again, I'm repeating myself. But you don't know what's real. But what's happening is you're. Or that what gets weird is. And the way I started to understand this through time and doing more sessions, you know, from a somatic approach, more low dose controlled is you're looking through two or four sets of eyes. So here's adult Steve that time, 52 year old Steve looking through the world. But also I had infant Steve who got awakened from one of those, you know, sub basement rooms. And I've got a baby looking through. So that's where that depersonalization derealization. So I'm like, you know, the babies, you know, sees the dinosaurs panicked. And I don't know why I'm panicked because of a dinosaur. And it makes no sense. But you can't sense of reality because you have two personalities, you have two Personas, you have two Steve's. And it's crazy making and it's awful. And for anyone out there dealing with that, I'm so sorry because it sucks. There's I. There's. It's one of the worst places to be. But there is a way through. And then for me ironic and I'll get into the psilocybin session. What was. You know, I would you know, in all honesty if what happened to me which was serotonin syndrome. If that didn't happen, I doubtful I'd still be here because it was getting so bad and it was just getting the session. The things were getting worse that was coming out of me. But I ended up finally at like month 9 going on xanax and a SSRI. [00:54:18] Dennis McKenna: You mean these high dose psilocybin sessions? [00:54:21] Steve Elfrink: No, no, no. This is still ayahuasca. [00:54:24] Dennis McKenna: Okay, okay. But you were having serotonin syndrome. [00:54:28] Steve Elfrink: Yeah, from ssr. I was on. I know this is hard maybe. [00:54:32] Dennis McKenna: Oh, I see. [00:54:33] Steve Elfrink: Hard to track all this. But yeah, it's because the things from the ayahuasca depersonalization derealization were getting so intense again in month nine now of dealing with this and no answers. I mean you were probably one of the best helps or you're saying Steve, you're going through a shamanic initiation. But Those words always stuck with me because I'm just like, okay, I don't understand this, but something's happening here. I never thought I was crazy, crazy. I just knew my body or something's working through here, and I just kept trying to trust it, trying to trust it. So your words helped me, Dennis. So thank you. But what happened? Yeah, so I was put on an ssri because I just got to this point. I can't handle this anymore. I will kill myself. And so I really wanted the Xanax, and I told the doctor I'm having panic attacks, got Xanax, SSRI. SSRIs made things worse. So they put me on SNRI, but they didn't do a taper. And so I ended up in serotonin syndrome and nearly died. Which I can. I don't need to go into the details of that, but one of the worst experience of my life was experiencing serotonin syndrome where I. Short story. I felt like at one point my head was going to explode in a thousand shards of glass. As my face is ticking, my whole body's convulsing. And I was thinking it was from ayahuasca, but it was the serotonin syndrome. But that moment and I. The intensity of the headache, the intensity of these thousands of shards of glass exploding in my head. When that happened, I thought I died. I blacked out. I came to, and first thing I did was this. Of touch my face to see if I'm still here. And I was and called my doctor, and he's like, oh, my God, my bad. Should have tapered you with serotonin syndrome. [00:56:24] Dennis McKenna: Or did the physician know that this was serotonin syndrome? [00:56:29] Steve Elfrink: No, the physician, when I talked to him, he's like, my bad. I should have tapered you. You could have died. Seesaw medications. [00:56:36] Dennis McKenna: Yeah, but. [00:56:37] Steve Elfrink: But what happened is that, you know, brain explosion kind of reset my brain, but not in a probably. I never recommend if someone's destabilized from psychedelic. Induce serotonin syndrome to break yourself out of it. [00:56:50] Dennis McKenna: No, I wouldn't recommend it either. [00:56:53] Steve Elfrink: Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that at home, kids. But it shifted something and. But then I did three months of depersonalization, derealization. That started to fade. But then I knew. I knew there was something in there. I knew I aborted what was trying to. Cause I do have. I'm not a big. I use. Trust the medicine with caution because it can get kind of scary and. But I knew something was trying to Work through. And I'd had various diagnoses in my life of bipolar and depression and general anxiety disorder. And I always just knew there's no, there's something else here. So that's. Yeah. So the reason I got into that psilocybin study is I knew there was something in there. I knew I needed to go back in. I knew, well, one, I wanted to be part of an FDA study because I thought that would be, as a psychonaut, something important to do so. But my main mission was to hopefully complete what happened from the Ayahuasca experience. I knew it was going to be challenging. I knew it was going to be very possibly very challenging, but I was hoping it would be the answer or it would work through whatever didn't get completed from Ayahuasca. But it ended up it just really challenging experiences. And you know, first dose and it was, you know, escalating doses. We were looking at pharmacokinetics, so blood serum levels, all that stuff, EKGs, blood draws. And people would say, well, probably challenging because you were having blood draws and EKGs. But the blood draws were probably one of the better parts of it because the blood draws, those became like the sacred blood. Angels would come in and take my sacred blood, which was going to the sacred lab. And then the sacred, you know, technicians there were analyzing my sacred molecules and the sacred psilocybin molecule. And this is going to help, you know, millions of people. So that was the beautiful part of it. And the rest of it was just incredibly challenging. Very, very challenging. But also I had on my third dose, this could be a whole other podcast, but the third dose, very, very, very challenging. Human suffering. Every person who's ever suffered channeled through me. This black hole abyss of screaming souls. Every scream channeled through me. I mean, it was very intense. And then personal suffering worst. The most wretched, despicable, awful soul parched. No food for 40 days, no water for 40 days, and then take a sip of water and I would die and then resurrect and then suffer. Sip of water, die for two hours after two hours of human suffering. But then, you know, not to go into trip report, but I did have probably one of the most profound experiences of my life on that third dose. A life changing experience of high indifference where I was above human suffering, above unity consciousness in the stateless state. So a very profound experience, but it didn't get to the root of my trauma. So what's fascinating, Dennis, is so that, I mean, incredibly, especially that the last two hours of that Place of high indifference. Because I, you know, was in and out of non dual states for a while after that. And it just. With no eyes, there's no suffering. And I was at the top of my game. And that's when I, you know, launched the first version of ohmterra, doing the psychedelic therapy symposiums. But what I found is I kept, even after that experience where I thought. And I also discovered that that time, but I had birth trauma. And then the ayahuasca thing made an experience or made sense. And I thought I like, cured everything between, you know, discovering that was birth trauma. Oh, that's what happened during that ayahuasca session. Then everything I went through all these suffering and then this final peak experience. I thought I achieved the magic goal because, you know, for a year plus, no suicidality, no depression, no anxiety. But then all that started coming back. One thing I want to just go a little bit into is how to work through this stuff. So. Because what I found with, from that psilocybin experience, you know, very profound and very beautiful. That third dose, again, I thought I was cured. But then also everything starts popping in again. And at this point I kind of got, you know, I was pretty involved with the underground world, seeing some bad things going on, starting to get a little disillusioned with psychedelics because, okay, I've done like everything someone could do, you know, including, you know, FDA study, every known psychedelic combinations of psych, not some of the designer stuff, but. And all of a sudden, here I am again. The depression's back. Suicidal ideation, intrusive thoughts, everything is back. And. But that was in this relentless pursuit of why. So that's where, you know, I think I alluded to it a little bit at the beginning of the podcast of starting to discover, okay, I'm blasting out. Blasting out. What's. What's this monkey thing called? Bodi? What's going on in there? So that led to discovering, you know, it was actually from Omtera, the third conference. Again, these were psychedelic therapy symposiums. Now I've got OMETERA As a therapy organization. Original version was therapy symposiums, which I'm still grateful for you, Dennis, for being part of that. Having some deer or venison chili and that whole experience. Still, one of the most beautiful memories of my life were those first two. Especially the first two symposiums. It was pure magic. [01:02:48] Dennis McKenna: Yes, they were. They were great symposiums. Yeah, yeah. [01:02:53] Steve Elfrink: So, like those beautiful things were coming, but then there was all of a sudden this depression, everything. So back to somatic. So What I got involved with was starting, you know, took a deep dive into psychedelic somatic world. And the one person I started working with was this gentleman, Saj Razvi. And again, this could be a whole podcast just on this, but it was what I discovered was first understanding fight or flight. And the first time I saw what was called the ANS map, the autonomic nervous system map that explained, you know, stress, mild or mild stress, fight or flight, and then dissociation, the symptoms with dissociation equaling depression, suicidal ideation, heaviness, all the stuff I was experiencing and then the anxiety as the state, what's called state two. Again, the whole, whole podcast could happen on this. But it was the first time I saw framing of what I was experiencing as a biological phenomenon. And it was like, okay, so I've gone everywhere possible up there into the spiritual realm and mind and insights, and I'm going to explore body, I'm going to go in this other direction. So I started doing these sessions which really just focus on this, activating the autonomic nervous system through like low dose ketamine or a little bit of cannabis. But it's just really to get the mind offline and then something called selective inhibition. And this work comes out of this kind of rambling on this, but it comes out. I want to give acknowledgment to Peter Levine. A lot of people know Peter Levine, who is one of the early somatic guys, and then Eric Walter Storf, who was one of his proteges, PhD students who really refined this model of accessing trauma through the body and using something called what Peter Levine called containment, which got renamed by my, me and my partner, Saj Razvi, selective inhibition business partner. But it's just reducing all standard coping mechanisms. So basically you're taking low dose ketamine and you can't move. So most of us, a thousand times a day, we touch our face. We're always just fidgeting, trying to take a deep breath, calm down, all that stuff to try to not go there, into those rooms. So we're always off gassing, we're always trying to reduce anxiety, calm ourselves down. But this process, you're going the opposite direction. So it just really takes you into body. And if you're reducing or inhibiting everything, all of a sudden body's gotta move somewhere. So stuff starts to just all these sensations starts to rise up, come out of the bedroom or those sub basements, but it's in a much more controlled environment and very small doses, you know, it's like a 45 minute to an hour session, but it's a place to get direct access to those boom, those, those rooms. And so right now that's the primary model I work with and 98% of my clients, that's the model I'm working with. And I do, you know, some psilocybin work and, but primarily I'm working with low dose ketamine is probably my main go to right now in this body focused approach to really access these sub basements and allow this energy, this held reactivity, these held emotional charges to come out in this very contained, very safe protocol. So questions on that, Dennis? I know that was kind of rapid fire trying to watch time here. [01:06:40] Dennis McKenna: This is quite a data dump. Steve, you have not shared this story with me. This is absolutely fascinating. It is fascinating, sobering. I mean, because you, you know, people don't realize, I think people could be very cavalier about psychedelics. I mean, I know I have been and I've paid the price and people do. I mean it's a two edged sword, you know, it's. Yes, it's a technology like anything else and they're, they in the right hands, in the right circumstances, they can be very healing, but they can also be quite dangerous, you know, I mean, listening to you, you know, describe these experiences, I'm thinking, what the fuck, I'm never going to touch these things again. Jesus. You know, and of course that won't be the case, but I recommend that these kinds of, the kinds of experiences that you have, you know, as I get older, I think, well, you know, I'm not in the best of health. I have heart issues and all that. I'm still comfortable with ayahuasca, you know, but at low doses. And ayahuasca has never been threatening for me like it has been for you. Yeah, but I can see how it could get there, you know, and I mean it's a tool. It's important to use this medicine to plumb these spaces. I mean it sort of goes back to the old Jungian idea that we're trying to achieve, you know, integration of some sort. What was the Jungian terms of know, integrate these different parts of the, of the unconscious. And there, there are tools for that. But, but the territory is not, it's not just a bunch of happy hippies dancing in the park, you know. [01:08:50] Steve Elfrink: No, and it's, I want to add in like I'm extreme case, like the level of trauma that I went through, um, like for the, the therapist I ended up working with and I'm a big fan of ifs. I should throw that in. So the model I work with now is a mutation of what was called psip, Psychedelic Somatic Interactional Psychotherapy, which is this trauma based model to go into trauma. But I've shifted it to kind of really bringing in ifs, bringing in more of this understanding of parts, understanding this level of structural dissociation, these little ones. So it's a much from where I started, it's a much more nuanced model. Much for me, my opinion, safer model, slower model. And that's what. And I did hundreds of sessions on my own also with my therapist. And you know, for her she was 25 years in doing trauma work. I was her number two most severe trauma client. Number one was from a satanic sex culture. And the level of trauma I was number two most severe. I'm not saying this as a bragging thing or anything, but I want to add. So like the level of trauma I went through was equal to the number of challenging experiences I had and the severity of the challenging experiences. They only touched on a few of my challenging ones, but there's many more. So abnormal. And again, I'm not ever trying to say don't do psychedelics. I'm an advocate for psychedelics. I, it's my, my life, I owe my life to psychedelics. I wouldn't be here without psychedelics. But I think my biggest message here as we're kind of wrapping up is be careful out there, folks. And again, like I had, you know, I, I was successful in the world, VP of sales in my corporate days and all this. I had no idea what I was holding. And it gets so tucked away and it depends on, you know, I've got, I call it supercomputer. So you know, kind of a cursing and a blessing. But I figured out a way to survive these awful, awful places that, you know, or these things that were done to me with no clue. So you never know who that client is in front of you. And so kind of just ending on this, like the screening thing is super important. And so like I turn or a lot of my psilocybin, you know, consults and for whatever reason, like most people, you know, like a lot of people that come to me are, you know, tried everything, nothing's worked. But to take them into psilocybin, maybe not the right answer. And so for me the screening thing is really important to start looking for any levels of dissociation. And for me, if, and I do really extensive screenings, I do, I Don't charge for consultations. And I really, because I want to go really deep with that client to know, is this client, you know, ready for me? Some of the red flags are if they've had adverse, you know, one adverse reaction to any other psychedelic experience, adverse reactions to psilocybin or cannabis. Like if someone went psychotic on cannabis, likely there's something in there. And then also starting to kind of talk about dissociation. How about not going directly to it, but asking, you know, do you feel disconnected from life? If you're with a group of people, do you feel part of or separate of? And you know, because a lot of people with dissociation, you know, never felt like part of life. Just feel like they're at a party but they're not there. So they're there and not there. So there's these kind of like little red flags that start to pop in and then really deeping, diving deep into trauma history. And if someone's had a lot of challenging, you know, they've been depressed most of their life, anxious most of their life, panic attacks, but no known trauma. But a lot of times anyone with trauma, they minimize it. So I really push on that, the trauma history, because I'm gonna be, you know, nothing there, nothing there. And it's like, God, something's there. And explore a little more. And it's like, well, yeah, my dad did hit me and did X, Y and Z, but, you know, I forgave him, but. And it wasn't. And he was an alcoholic and he had a terrible life and I was probably a, you know, bratty kid anyway. But they minimize it and then people will forgive. But then that young one, you know, that three year old is like, what are you talking about? [01:13:17] Dennis McKenna: Forgiving? Right, right. You could say, rationally, I've forgiven, but the hurt is there. The hurt will always be there. And that, yeah, that's part suffered, will still will continue to suffer and say, what the fuck? There's no, you know, you can't forgive something. Well, I mean, what's interesting about this conversation is you have experienced all of this yourself and so I think it makes you a good healer because you've been through it and then this has become kind of your life mission. I mean, you're very dedicated to this and this is not a, this is not a casual thing. I would think in some ways. [01:14:10] Steve Elfrink: No, no, no. [01:14:11] Dennis McKenna: Having been through all this, you would want to distance yourself from it. But I mean, you, you help other people deal with it, live through it, find ways through this. These kinds of traumatic states. And yes there's. You're like, you're like the, the guide that I forget the name. Is it Chiron? The boat that, the guide that ferries people to Hades after death. You're kind of like that guy. [01:14:50] Steve Elfrink: Yeah, I take, I tell people yeah, we're going to go and I take what they do is take people into hell realm. I take you people to the core of the core, the worst possible place you could imagine. That's where we're going because it's where again where this trauma, this scared three year old who that three year old back to that three year old who can't forgive, they still live in terror and panic. It's timeless. They still think the perpetrators here, that's why someone's experiencing in the here and now hyper vigilance and not safe, not safe because that three not safe, not safe. But then I mean for me the beauty also Dennis is and I tell clients is, you know, no matter what shows up, no matter how awful it gets, no matter how insane it gets, how you might think you're going crazy, I'll get you through it. Because nothing freaks me out, nothing triggers me, nothing concerns me. It's one I trust implicitly. Body to process, body's wisdom to process whatever's in there. And being through it myself, I've seen it. I can almost, I can pretty much say I've seen it all. [01:15:55] Dennis McKenna: Yeah, yeah. [01:15:57] Steve Elfrink: My like where I went, you know, I hit insanity. Like pure unbridled insanity. Stayed with it. Because the key is just keep staying with, staying with and it's going to move through. You know, I hit the seven year old, seven year old little Steve who was hit, you know, pure suicidality, like just pure despair. Pure, like awful. But you just stay with it, stay with it, stay with it and that clears through. So for me it's created. You know, the work I'm doing and done for myself for other clients has like my admiration for what the body is capable of is indeed. And I think also what I've learned Dennis is there's so much beauty in blowing out there and the spiritual realms and unity consciousness. But I've also found through this work the most spiritual experience I've really had is just coming home to body. For me this place was not safe. All these feelings were here. Bad, bad, awful, awful things. [01:17:03] Dennis McKenna: There's a lot to be said for the default mode network. You know, in a certain way. The thing that is in what we call the default load network or sometimes I call it the reality hallucination but it's normal reality and there's a lot to be said for it. I want to be able to walk in the woods and go to the beach and make love and read a page of poetry and do all the things that you can do from being a. For one, a person, an entity inhabiting a body that can do all those things, you know, enjoy a good curry and those sorts of things. Not to be said for that. But also if it comes from a place of knowing that there is all this. This infernal, this hell that you never confront, that, you know, that doesn't work either. So you give a people. You really do give people a chance to access that, confront that and get through it and become stronger and better because of it. [01:18:17] Steve Elfrink: So, yeah, yeah. And for a lot of folks, it's like experiencing liberation. [01:18:22] Dennis McKenna: Yeah. They don't have to have it. There's a way to. And I think everyone suffers from it. I mean, we live in a trial, traumatized world. You know, we're all exposed to it on some level. You know, even if our parents weren't abusive or whatever. There's always trauma. Yes. You know, that's the nature of living in the 21st century, so. [01:18:47] Steve Elfrink: Yeah, definitely. And there's such a spectrum of trauma, and one person's trauma is not a big deal for the other. So it's like, can be personality, intelligence, it can be. If there was someone good in your life that's helping you co regulate your system, that you can just kind of recover from those bad things. And there's so. Trauma is so complex. And also, I think we just. Part of my mission is to just destigmatize trauma because we, we all have it to some degree. [01:19:16] Dennis McKenna: That's true. We all do. This has been a fascinating and enlightening conversation. Steve. I. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your coming on. [01:19:27] Steve Elfrink: Oh, my gosh, Dennis, you're welcome. Like you, you're. You're the man. I mean, I can't. I appreciate all you've done in the world and the word, the. The beautiful words that you've brought to people, the beautiful work you've brought to people. The master network that you are, how you've connected people. You've changed my life on many levels. And I'm eternally grateful and appreciative of you, Dennis. Of what you've done for folks. [01:19:54] Dennis McKenna: Yeah, that's what I do. I'm kind of a connector. I put people together and that's. That's good. Did we not cover anything that you wanted to say before we close this out? This is. [01:20:08] Steve Elfrink: Let's see. I mean, they're probably. Like I said, my biggest challenge is I've got so much to share. I've done so much, like, behind the scenes. I've been like, again, the mad scientist who's just starting to come out a bit here. And I've learned so much from all these hundreds of sessions, literally hundreds and hundreds of sessions in these last four years of clearing this stuff out, learning trauma from the inside out. So there is many things, but nothing comes to mind. But I look forward to further conversations. [01:20:40] Dennis McKenna: And is this not the last podcast? One of many? We can certainly have future podcasts and, you know, we can have future conversations. It doesn't have to be in the context of a podcast, you know, so beautiful. Absolutely. It's. It's been. [01:21:00] Steve Elfrink: To be continued. [01:21:01] Dennis McKenna: To be continued like everything else in life, Steve. [01:21:06] Steve Elfrink: Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Dennis, for the opportunity to get this word out and spend time with you and look forward to more and look forward to having you over for some more venison chili. [01:21:17] Dennis McKenna: Yeah, it's been great. Have a good day and we'll be in touch. [01:21:23] Steve Elfrink: Okay, beautiful. Thank you, Dennis. Take care. [Outro] Join our mission to harmonize with the natural world. Support the Makena Academy by donating today. Thank you for listening to Brainforest Café with Dennis McKenna. Find us online at McKenna Academy.