Charles Grob - MBHP Transcription

Charlie Deist1h 17min

Dr. Richard Miller00:00

Welcome to mind body health and politics. I'm your host, Dr. Richard Louis Miller. The mission of mind body health and politics is to enhance your physical and emotional well being, and encourage community. And I stress encourage community, because I believe that we human beings are friendly, collaborative tribal animals. And when we associate with one enough, and one another, in small enough groups where we know everybody by name, or at least by face, we love to do things together, we cooperate with one another, whether it's sewing circles, or watching bowl games, or playing together, eating together, we love to eat together in circles and sit around and have fun and enjoy human beings, our tribal, we love to be with one another. We like to collaborate, cooperate. At the very same time, it's imperative that we remind ourselves that there is a small percentage of us who are very different. They are avaricious predators. They have been with us right from the beginning. They are part of who we are, and we must stay aware of them. These are the people who when we came out of caves, with a strong men in the cave, they became the kings. And then they became the head of countries. And in many cases, they became actual kings. They then connected with the church, as you know, and they ruled by what was called Divine Right. And they ruled the rest of us, and they called us subjects. But over a couple 100 years ago, our country became the first country since the Greeks and the Romans experimented with democracy. And we overthrew the king, and we turned against their ruling by divine right, and we became citizens. And it's our task now, to maintain this democracy. And this republic is not a given that we have forever. And it's a fragile document. It's a fragile way of living democracy, one person, one vote, Republic, everyone equal before the law. To maintain it, we must stay aware, and I implore you all who listen to spread the word of the importance of staying aware, in the words of one of my heroes, Thomas Jefferson, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Today on mind, body health and politics. I have the privilege of interviewing Dr. Charley Grobe. Dr. Charley Grobe psychiatrist and scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles for many years, is one of the founding fathers of the psychedelic Renaissance. His work has been seminal. Go to Google, research Dr. Trolley Grobe, find out about him, and certainly listen to other YouTubes other interviews, in addition to the one you can hear today, I had the privilege of interviewing Charlie, I think back in 2005. We're looking for that archive. I know I interviewed him after his groundbreaking seminal research that was published in 2010. Welcome to mind, body health and politics, Charlie, good to see you again, Richard. It's been a while it's been a while too long, but we'll see each other soon. As we discussed in June, at the maps conference, in Denver, Colorado, this June.

Charles Grob03:58

That's right. I wouldn't miss it for anything, I wouldn't

Dr. Richard Miller04:01

either. Were to begin with you. The two topics that I'd like to focus on the most today are end of life, end of life healing, with with psychedelics, and depression and anxiety. In general, with psychedelics. We need we need a lot more work. And we need a lot more research. I know that, but I want you to share some of your insights going back over the years. With regard to oh, there was one other topic I just missed two that I want to discuss very important today, in addition to the end of life, anxiety and depression. I want to discuss adverse effects with you. And there's a reason for that I feel that I'm going to be I'm doing a book on adverse effects of psychedelics And the reason I'm doing it, Charlie, and I know you're in favor of it, is because as we well know, the pharmaceutical companies do their best to hide their negative effects. You know that I know that. And I think it's our responsibility in this new wave of psychedelic science and research, to do just the opposite, to be totally transparent, to tell the public everything, The Good, the Bad, and the ugly. And so I want to talk to you about adverse effects today. Let's talk about end of life first, because that is a topic that's on everybody's mind. Great.

Charles Grob05:40

Well, let me first say that the the work we did, we we drew heavily on the research conducted by the previous generation of investigators, as I call them, the Pioneer Generation of psychedelic researchers, Stan Grof, and his contemporaries and even those older, so the use of a psychedelic treatment model for people experiencing a significant anxiety approaching end of life really started in the early 60s with Eric cast, a physician in Chicago, who was a pain specialist, and who, around 1960 heard of a, an unusual and novel compound that had been discovered and synthesized by Sandoz pharmaceuticals, in Basel, Switzerland. And in those days, you didn't need a protocol, you didn't need to go through an elaborate regulatory process. To get hold of experimental drugs, all you needed to do is write to the manufacturer, and inform them that you are an investigator, this is what you wanted to look at. And could they please send you an ample supply of whatever material it was that they that you are interested in? So this is what Cass did, he got a got a big bottle of LSD 25 in the mail was no no instructions, no guidelines to speak of. So he just went around, when he saw his patients in the hospital, gave each of his patients a pill and said, Look, this is a new drug. We don't know much about it. But why don't you take it later today. And tomorrow, when I make my rounds, you can tell me what it did. So that's what happened. And but you know, cast on hearing the reports of his patients quickly realized that there, there had to be a better way to administer the drug a more controlled and a safer way. So he, he did some consultation with some psychiatrists who had worked with with LSD and related compounds and and learned very quickly, the importance of optimizing set and setting to facilitate the best possible outcome and the least likelihood of severe adverse effects. So with set it was, you know, the person's psychological disposition, how they're prepared for the experience, and what is their intention? I think this is very important issue. What is the intention of someone wishing to take a psychedelic, it doesn't have something to do with healing as a spiritual issue, and need to answer a question get some insight, or does it have to do simply with having fun having a recreational experience? Because what that that said is is going to play a significant role in determining outcome setting then would be who you take it with, where you take it with? How well protected Are you? Do you do have provisions to handle unexpected occurrences like someone banging at the door, you want somebody straight with you, and someone who could kind of take charge of a tough situation. So cast understood this understood how to administer the drug. And he went about treating a large series of patients with chronic unremitting pain and found good results very good, very impressive results on their amelioration of pain, and they're less than need for narcotic pain medication. He also found improved mood, lessened anxiety and improve overall quality of life. Now, a colleague a few years later,

Dr. Richard Miller09:39

let me interrupt your Charlie, before we go on, because what you're talking about this Eric cash work, I want to point out took place in 1964. And evidently what you were doing in the 2000s, early 2000s was manifest Steve, one of what you come up with, and I know you have in your work sort of six principles that we're going to talk about later. And one of your principles is learn from the past. So you you are learning from, from the past and what was going on there? Oh, exactly. I

Charles Grob10:16

think we owe a great debt to the investigators from, you know, 60 years ago, from that whole whole generation, as well as we have a lot to learn from the truth. The authorities, amongst indigenous native peoples, who for whom utilizing plant psychedelics is a tradition that stretches back over millennia. And these are the people who kept the secrets alive, who kept the mysteries extent, while in the face of terrible persecution, by often by the European invaders of the New World.

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