The Link Between Mental & Physical Health & Ketamine’s Role in Treatment with Jorge Padron on The Healers Cafe

In this episode of The Healers Café, Manon Bolliger, FCAH, RBHT (facilitator and retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice) speaks with Jorge Padron about the impact of psychedelics like ketamine on mental health and the connection between physical and mental well-being.

Highlights from today’s episode include:

Jorge Padron

trust, right? Because so many times people build up the walls because they don’t want anything getting in, but then you can’t get out either. So now you’re trapped in with all your, you know, 20 feet walls you built up so the world can’t get in, but you can’t get

Jorge Padron

it’s like, you know. You’re going to be with yourself for, let’s just say, 80 years of your life, and you’re never going to check in with yourself? You’re just going to believe what everybody else is telling you, what is what they’re telling you is not necessarily good for you, and you only really know that if you know

– – – – –

Manon Bolliger

you know, when you say the conversation with self, I mean, we’re in society where we’re trying to have a conversation with a doctor. That’s already something, but to have a conversation with oneself, you become your best, your second best opinion, right? And it could be the best opinion.

ABOUT JORGE PADRON:

I have 12 years of healthcare experience in various areas such as ICU, trauma, and psychiatry. I trained in psychedelic assisted therapy at California Institute of Integral Studies and ketamine therapy with Dr. Phil Wolfson. Currently, I am engaged with the AWE psychedelic training program.

Core purpose/passion: I am passionate about helping people see a way out of their mental health struggles instead of pathologizing every difficult experience. This requires more time and effort as sometimes to get better, we have to get comfortable with not knowing or uncertainty to produce a change in somebody’s life.

Website | LinkedIn |

ABOUT MANON BOLLIGER, FCAH, RBHT

As a recently De-Registered board-certified naturopathic physician & in practice since 1992, I’ve seen an average of 150 patients per week and have helped people ranging from rural farmers in Nova Scotia to stressed out CEOs in Toronto to tri-athletes here in Vancouver.

My resolve to educate, empower and engage people to take charge of their own health is evident in my best-selling books: ‘What Patients Don’t Say if Doctors Don’t Ask: The Mindful Patient-Doctor Relationship’ and ‘A Healer in Every Household: Simple Solutions for Stress’. I also teach BowenFirst™ Therapy through Bowen College and hold transformational workshops to achieve these goals.

So, when I share with you that LISTENING to Your body is a game changer in the healing process, I am speaking from expertise and direct experience”.

Mission: A Healer in Every Household!

For more great information to go to her weekly blog: http://bowencollege.com/blog.

For tips on health & healing go to: https://www.drmanonbolliger.com/tips

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About The Healers Café:

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* De-Registered, revoked & retired naturopathic physician after 30 years of practice in healthcare. Now resourceful & resolved to share with you all the tools to take care of your health & vitality!

TRANSCRIPT

Introduction 00:00

Welcome to the Healers Café. The number one show for medical practitioners and holistic healers, to have heart to heart conversations about their day to day lives, while sharing their expertise for improving your health and wellness.

Manon Bolliger 00:17

So welcome to the Healers Cafe. And today I have Jorge Padron with me, and he has been 12 years of healthcare, or has had 12 years of healthcare experience in various areas such as ICU, trauma and psychiatry. He trained in psychedelic assisted therapy in California Institute of Integral Studies and ketamine therapy with Dr. Phil Wolfson. And currently he’s engaged with AW Psychedelic training program. And I think your your history is basically combining medication management with holistic care such as talk therapy and the use of these alternative therapies like ketamine assisted psychotherapy. So welcome.

Jorge Padron 01:21

What’s a pleasure to be here, Manon.

Manon Bolliger 01:24

Yeah, so my usual question, because it’s just my curiosity, what brought you into this? I mean, maybe nursing first, but what brought you to this, you know, particular aspect of healing?

Jorge Padron 01:45

That’s a good question, and it’s actually been kind of a varied road. I started when I was 17 with an EMT certificate, and then by the time I was 18, I was a paramedic. From that on, I continued to study it, of course. I always had a passion just for helping people, and that kind of changed over the years. Now I mostly do psychiatry, but mainly, I started more with the physical approach, and then from that approach, I moved on more to mental or a mind model, right? So I do combine a lot of the knowledge I gained along the way, but most of the time, I feel like everything kind of informs each other, right? Like so the physical body and our mind are very correlated to a point that, you know, obviously, if you’re sick physically, that will affect your mind. And sometimes vice versa, you know, or a lot of times vice versa, I’ve seen it go both ways, right? So when I was working in the ICU, which is really what led me to to pursue psychiatry, I saw how many mental health issues were untreated and were leading to issues with long term health, right? You have someone that they tell them, hey, you keep eating this way, you’re going to die. Yet, they’re unable to satiate themselves with their life or anything else, and they will literally eat themselves to death, or they will participate in behaviors that will shorten their life significantly. Yet these people don’t seem to have a control over this, right? They use a lot of these small adaptive mechanisms to emotionally support themselves, and they shorten their lives. They rather have a shorter life than than stop doing these things, right? So that’s really what led me down the path of psychiatry and mental health.

Manon Bolliger 03:47

And so in describing like, the person who most benefits, like, what is it that this combination, which is, you know, partially talk therapy, and I would imagine ……

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presence, you know, hearing what’s going on for people, plus the ketamine therapy, like, who are the people that most benefit from that, and also ketamine, I mean, just for those who may not know what it is, if you could just say a little bit about it as well.

Jorge Padron 04:27

Yeah. Well, we’ll start off with ketamine, and ketamine is one of the only legal psychedelics. We really call it a psychedelic really, because it has psychedelic properties that we have here in the United States. We are having, of course, some movement on the front. Oregon in the United States did approve psilocybin, which is the mushroom therapy, and Colorado has decriminalized a lot of plant based psychedelics. So obviously, legislation is changing. But for now, ketamine widely in all of the states is that that substance that a lot of people can have access to and doctors can prescribe. So a lot of times, when we are looking at a lot of these substances, it’s really an issue of access, right? So if we do not have enough access, it really damages or it severely shortens how much population you can reach, right? So ketamine has a wide reach because it is a substance that also doesn’t last very long, so it will mostly stay in your system for an hour or so, or an hour and a half, depending on the formulation that you use, and it makes it so the clinician can easily treat the patient. Unlike some of the other psychedelics, that last a longer time, right? So, if you do something like mushrooms or psilocybin or anything like that, you’re going to be looking at six to eight hours, and then there’s a long period of comeback, which makes it very hard for providers to commit that time to just one patient, pretty much one day for that patient. As it is in mental health, there’s just not enough providers already, as it is. And then if you add a combination like this, this type of therapy, that’s going to significantly impact. I just wanted to give a little bit of background on therapy, and now I will explain who this is for, although now it is being built as it’s a cure all for everything, as we know, that’s not really the case with any substance, and you shouldn’t use a substance as, oh, this substance treats everything. It is a nucleotide on the block, even though it’s an old medicine. So a lot of people are jumping to it as a first line treatment, or the in vogue treatment, right? But the reality is, the people that are going to benefit from this are people that have tried antidepressants or other modalities and haven’t had any relief from them. Maybe someone that’s looking for rapid reduction in their their their depressive symptoms, right? It doesn’t work so well for anxiety, and one of the reasons being, of course, a lot of people with anxiety have issues with control, and then you have a substance that basically gets…you don’t have control, because once you take it, you know, to some degree, you are having a journey where you’re really going to deep regions of your subconscious mind. And that will, to some degree, be scary to some people, right? So, the right patient is mostly looking at someone that is well informed, that has tried other therapies, and that is trying to, you know, just have a rapid reduction in symptoms, but is also someone that doesn’t have certain conditions that would preclude them from therapy, one of them being hypertension, even though it’s a sedative, ketamine, actually does increase heart rate and blood pressure. So someone with uncontrolled heart rate or blood pressure, you really is not inappropriate for that, for that session or for that type of treatment, and also someone that has thyroid issues that are not treated, if they’re treated, they can have the that type of treatment. But if they’re not treated, you really shouldn’t, because they could…it could really just regulate the thyroid.

Manon Bolliger 08:12

Now, from what I understand, it’s used, also conventionally, as a anesthetic, or also for as a painkiller, but with its duration being, you know, an hour or so. What is actually…what is the therapy that reaches people? Is it like a subconscious work, or what is it that like I’m just wondering, you know, pain syndrome, complex pain syndrome, which is multifaceted, and from what I’ve researched it, the origin of it is very hard to tell. You get, you get to name it that eventually. But nobody really knows how it got there. Is that the type of therapy that would be useful,

Jorge Padron 09:05

Yes, it is used in people that have intractable pain or chronic pain syndrome. And the reason for it was, even though the effects, the initial effects, are short lived, actually the biologic effects, it causes a cascade, right? So, because it’s what we call a drug that doesn’t act just on one receptor. It mostly actually acts on glutamate. What it’s actually going to do is actually going to create more, you know, there’s going to be other neurotransmitters that are going to come into play because of the use of this. And this can last up to the weeks. The effects really the, what we call, sometimes the afterglow, or really those effects people might feel good for up to a week, especially the first time, the first couple times where the brain is not used to it. Now, of course, in the news now, there is issues, as you saw the famous actor, unfortunately, Matthew Perry died from ketamine overdose, and that’s very big. So a lot of people are finding out about ketamine now, from this negative side effect, uh. And unscrupulous practices, right? Uh, obviously there was some issues not just ketamine. It was also just not really therapeutic levels of the substance. So that’s in regardless. But to go back to your question of pain. So the other effect, which is psychological, is if a lot of people, not just with depression or anxiety, but even with pain, identify with the pain. So you say, my pain, I have chronic pain. The moment that you’ve identified with something, it’s a lot harder to get rid of it, as we know. And ketamine is very good at getting you to observe your pain without necessarily identifying with it. So it’s almost having that a lot like a mindfulness or zen moment that where you have a timeout. Phil Wilson, who trained me, actually calls it a timeout. It’s a timeout where you’re observing your body, your pain, right, but you’re not necessarily identifying with it. And that is huge psychologically. That’s huge because it gets to show you, I’m more than just my chronic back pain. I’m more than this pain that I’ve had and had issues. I mean that I’ve had issues on and off for the years, and now I’m more than this, and that gets people to kind of have a little bit of a distance from them, that that is hugely beneficial from the psychological perspective, aside from the biological effects it has.

Manon Bolliger 11:19

And have you found that? I guess it could be a combination of both as psychological and biological, but that it can be used as a this is a word we’re not supposed to use, but curative in the sense that you can actually either by being the observer and therefore not directly identifying with it, but also the cascade of neurotransmitters that would come in, in taking this maybe a few times. Is it possible then, to change the biology that way? Like, does it make sense that you could potentially then be free of pain?

Jorge Padron 12:09

I’ve seen a lot of people make great strides, but no substance actually is curative, and that’s something that we have a hard time in our consumer society actually addressing right? So the reason that a cure really requires that the person actually change something about their life that was happening to some degree that actually creates a totally new environment. It doesn’t mean that they need to move towns or anything like that, but something about them has fundamentally changed, and that’s when you really see the biggest changes with this substance and with any other substance, because there’s a lot of people that do use these substances, and to some degree, they experience what’s called a, you know, poop out. We call it unfortunately, you know, like it stops working right. It just doesn’t like the substance no longer has that beneficial effect. And now the person is even in a more desperate situation, because something that they finally found working is now no longer working. Where you usually find that is the person relied too much on the substance. And this could happen with any other psychedelics. It could happen with anything really, where the person, and you see this, this is a, unfortunately, a really big issue in the psychedelic sphere, where people will say, well, the medicine told me. Oh, okay. But the reality is, your mind is also coming into play with this sacred substance, whatever you call it, whichever one of these substances. So most of the healing is being done also by your by these other parts of your mind that you’re not used to exploring. And yes, the plant may have its own consciousness. We don’t. We might not get into that, or whatever, right? Of course, I go on to many, as many different cultures where they really do have this belief that the plant has its own consciousness, ketamine, some people would even say has its own the ketamine space, they call it, right? And some people call it to be very, very much something that you go into when you use ketamine. Right? Compared to other substances, right? But really you see that when people get so enamored with a substance, that’s when you see negative effects if someone can actually use the substance as a teacher or as a step along their journey, then, yes, it can be a step in the curative journey, but it is never the entire journey, and that’s where so many people have a hard time accepting with any of these substances.

Manon Bolliger 14:38

Yeah, no, I think I would from my it’s not my specialty, but definitely I would concur from the patients when I had a practice, I would agree with you, yeah. There it has to be within a context of which, wanting to become aware is part of the journey. You know. At least that’s how I see it. Yeah, well, so with what’s happening these days in the world, and there’s a lot of neurological issues that have come across or that have manifested as either side effects or latent possibilities within people, have you been able to help those or address those kind of issues?

Jorge Padron 15:36

Yeah, and strangely enough, that doesn’t always require ketamine or anything special. Sometimes addressing those issues just requires really caring and showing someone that you know, you’re there for them in a way that a lot of times it’s hard, because we are very much in the business of a patient satisfaction or satisfaction of you know. The problem with that happens that people, if you knew what you needed to do to get better, you you would have probably done it. Most people are intelligent enough. But the problem is a lot of providers, I think, are afraid to say the hard thing, because sometimes it’s a word that helps the person, and not so much a substance. It’s not, hey. But really, how many times are you going to run away from this problem? When are you going to address it right?

Commercial Break 16:29

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Jorge Padron 17:39

But you know, a lot of times, we live in a society where there’s a lot of there’s reviews out there and things like that. I normally get I get along great with my patients, but I always tell them right before they start treatment with me, I am hard. I will tell you the thing you don’t want to hear if I think you need to hear it. And that’s how, really, you help people, by being honest, by being…by instead of caring so much about, oh wow, they told me everything I want to hear, so I’m going to go to them and just spend 20 years on the couch and feel great about myself. Therapy isn’t about feeling great, because if you’re feeling so great in therapy, there’s probably not much hard work going on, right? So therapy sometimes can feel very good, especially when you meet your goals and you get better, but a lot of times it could feel very hard and it could be daunting, because the things that you need to do are out there in the real world, not on the therapy couch, yeah, and that’s how it help people?

Manon Bolliger 18:37

Mm, yeah, that’s funny, because that reminds me a bit of of the reputation I had too. They would say, Well, you know, if you want a real opinion, go see her, she’ll tell you what it’s, what it, you know, at least my opinion. But it’s like, you don’t pull back because it’s a true, it’s a truth. It’s not the truth. But if I’m aligned with it, and they resonate, there’s a chance for healing to take place. You know, if you act like a people pleaser, it’ll never work. So, you know, and that’s for any type of therapy I would think, you know, yeah.

Jorge Padron 19:19

It’s very hard.

Manon Bolliger 19:21

Yeah. So what are there without names, of course, but are there, you know, cases that you you know, that really affected you or moved you, or, you know, for people who are listening and going, Wow, I miss this. I need to look into this like, what can you share that where you see that this work fills a unique need or, you know, or a solution to a problem that other therapies may not reach. You know? I mean, everyone chooses their door and, you know, it’s not about knocking anyone, but it’s, you know, sometimes you have a sense that this is really perfect for this type of person.

Jorge Padron 20:11

So I have had a lot of success with people that have experienced trauma or people that have experienced severe difficulty with maybe loved ones dying and grief. And one of the reasons you could attribute this is one, if we’re talking about ketamine therapy, which is just a subset of what I do, it’s not all of what I do. But if we’re talking about that, because we’re on that subject, ketamine seems to have this real effect on…it does almost very it’s almost like a near death experience. It’s very, very similar, if you use the correct dosage. So it’s not like the person thinks they died, but very close to it. So there’s a lot of ego suppression, and this causes a lot of almost like a life review, very similar to what people have called the life review in near death experiences, right? So, because it triggers this in the mind, it’s able to really review traumatic events or even the death of a loved one and and see it in different perspectives. See it as like, oh, wow, I can finally say goodbye, even if that person is not no longer there, you’re not going to be able to to really say goodbye to that person, or we don’t know, right? But at least in your mind, you’ve come to peace with it, because a lot of it is where this therapy is really good, is coming to peace with something that you’ve struggled with a long time, right? So it’s really good with that. And you know, I don’t like to say too much about my patients, because sometimes they do listen to the podcast and things like that. So I don’t like to say too specific things, but what I do feel is when people have specific events that have marked their lives, it’s really good at addressing that. Now also, when people have issues with letting go of control, and, you know, OCD like behaviors is really good for that, because I’ve had people that I’m like, Oh, wow, I let go and I came back, and the whole world is burnt down, and it gets to trust, right? Because so many times people build up the walls because they don’t want anything getting in, but then you can’t get out either. So now you’re trapped in with all your, you know, 20 feet walls you built up so the world can’t get in, but you can’t get out. And where people stay stuck, it’s really good at breaking those barriers.

Manon Bolliger 22:30

Yeah. That gives a very good yeah, for me, a good understanding of it. And the analogy is exactly. It’s perfect. It’s true. You know, you build the walls, but then you’re stuck inside, you know? So, yeah, very interesting. So what other therapies, or what other work do you do that you’re enjoying in your practice, or that you see is, is complimentary or?

Jorge Padron 22:59

So really, my therapy style is a combination of many different ones. So one of the ones that I’m really enjoying is just having people really…I have a series of exercises that it gets them to talk to themselves, without necessarily having to use a substance or anything like that. And one of them, I call it coffee with a friend, where basically, you know, most of us drink coffee or tea or something like that, but most of us never check in with ourselves. And you’re going to see that, you know, we of course, always recommend to people, Hey, meditate and do this and that, but that’s just something else they’re going to have to do. And if you’re busy enough, that’s always going to get pushed back. So I really recommend to a lot of my paitients, and I’ve gotten very good results from it just sitting there for as long as it takes you to sip your coffee or drink your tea, or whatever you’re going to have in the morning, or maybe, you know, in the evening, or whenever, whenever you you have the time for that, and basically pretending there’s another version of them right across from them, and they’re going to just tell them about what’s happening in their day. And they’re just going to say that, and then they’re going to leave a two minute pause and see what comes up. And usually, in the beginning, it’s nothing, but over time, people are surprised that they start talking back, not in a you have to be careful where you do this, right? You don’t want to do this in public, and then have other issues, but really, you see how much of a difference that makes for people. So I really, almost, really enjoy having people get back in relationship with each other and trying to remove myself even from that process. So I will give them the technique, then they’ll do it on their own. They’ll bring back whatever they they they saw, but people start to actually help themselves to a point that they’re, they’re really, you’re really just letting them go. You’re, you’re kind of taking off the training wheels, and you’re seeing how much that person actually does know what to do to make themselves better, but they just never asked, right? Because a lot of people say it’s like, oh, I want to be at peace, and I don’t want to be anxious. I don’t want to be depressed. Okay, do you know what you need to do to do that? Oh, no, I have no idea. Have you ever asked yourself, no, why would I ask myself? That’s already coming from a supposition, right? And then, of course, this very same person takes ketamine or takes a psychedelic or takes a mushroom, and then all of a sudden, they’re having this mystical experience where they just know, they just automatically know what they need to do. And it’s actually true, they do that and they get better. But what really happened? You just remove the ego from it, and now you’re having a conversation with yourself. You could call it the mushroom, or you could call it whatever you want, but you’re having this conversation with yourself with no judgment. You’ve removed the critic. You remove the inner critic and the ego and the PR manager. The ego is the the perfect PR manager, trying to make sure that you know everything is under wraps, and then this person gets better. But what I’m trying to teach people is like you can do that without a substance. If you make that a part of your life, you will always be able to honor your intuition, but if you don’t do it, it’s like, you know. You’re going to be with yourself for, let’s just say, 80 years of your life, and you’re never going to check in with yourself? You’re just going to believe what everybody else is telling you, what is what they’re telling you is not necessarily good for you, and you only really know that if you know yourself.

Manon Bolliger 26:20

Yeah, yeah. Like, I so agree with that. I mean, it’s such a fundamental part, you know, because part of my my practice was doing this physical therapy. So people would come in with, you know, frozen shoulders, or TMJ problems or and rather than go, you know, their attitude was like, okay, fix me, right? And, yeah, it could be done. But I always ask, Why do you want to get better? And it’s like they look at me, like I must be mocking them, but I wasn’t. I was seriously asking the question. And those who could go there. You know, it was, I know that it changed the way the treatment was received. And I know that they reached much deeper depth of healing than if I had just said, Okay, get on the table and, you know, we’ll do our magic, or whatever it’s the context of healing is huge, you know? So I think that’s the conversation. And you know, when you say the conversation with self, I mean, we’re in society where we’re trying to have a conversation with a doctor. That’s already something, but to have a conversation with oneself, you become your your best, your second best opinion, right? And it could be the best opinion. That’s the thing, right?

Jorge Padron 27:49

Yeah. I, I always tell people, listen, I may be an expert in whatever I do, but you’re an expert on you. So we there’s always two experts. Whenever you’re treating someone, you are bringing your expertise on how to heal them, and they’re bringing their expertise on themselves, but when they don’t bring it up, there’s a missing component, right? And I asked a very similar question, it’s a little bit more direct, but I said, Well, are you ready to do what you need to do to get better? And they, of course, always say, of course. And I’m like, No, are you really? Because then the moment that you say, Okay, well, don’t do that anymore. Don’t do this. Okay, we’re going to do that. They’re like, whoa, whoa, I can’t do that. That’s not the way I function. Well, then how are we going to get better? Right? It’s all about that. But I do think people are more aware nowadays than they were before, and people are being more empowered. So I really like that. That trend is towards really trusting yourself a little bit more. It becomes a problem where, of course, the medical or even the the professional healing organizations are losing a lot of public trust, and it’s just because people feel a disconnect there with them, and unfortunately, we should mend that, but one of the ways to mend it is to really come to the table and honor the patient experience, honor the person’s experience.

Manon Bolliger 29:08

Absolutely, yeah, I think it’s more transparency, more connection, more dialog, not the opposite, you know, not just trust authority, and that’s definitely going the wrong direction, which, you know, parts of our society would like to go to, but I don’t think they’re going to win. Very optimistic, and anyway, if we create a parallel that is fundamentally more aligned with people’s consciousness, that’s what will happen, right? It’s um, it’s really, everyone has to take responsibility for their part, you know? So anyway, last words to you, because we’ve already done our time.

Jorge Padron 29:54

Ah, no, yeah. I mean, it was a pleasure. Thank you for having me, and I just would encourage every. One to really maybe try coffee with a friend for themselves and see if, if they have something to tell themselves, you know, and it’s amazing what they might find. You know, you don’t have to write it down or anything make it casual. Eventually you might want to write it down, but you owe it to yourself to have that conversation at least once in a while. So I would always encourage people to go ahead and do that, and you could do it over your favorite burgers. So it’s not like it’s gotta take any more time out of your life.

Manon Bolliger 30:25

Well, thanks very much, Jorge.

Jorge Padron 30:28

Thank you.

Ending

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* De-Registered, revoked & retired naturopathic physician, after 30 years of practice in healthcare. Now resourceful & resolved to share with you all the tools to take care of your health & vitality!