On 1 Feb the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) announced that - from the 1st July 2023 - the medical use of MDMA and Psilocybin will be rescheduled from Schedule 9 (prohibited substances) to Schedule 8 (controlled medicines) of the Poisons Standard. This will enable authorised psychiatrists to prescribe these substances for treatment-resistant depression and treatment resistant post-traumatic stress disorder.

Today we speak with Peter Hunt who is not your conventional mental health practitioner. Peter is in fact a career investment banker with 35 years of experience as a banker. He has advised local and multi-national companies and governments in Australia.  The reason why we’re speaking with Peter is also an active philanthropist involved in funding, developing and scaling social sector organisations with the goal to create a better and fairer world. 

Specifically, Peter is the Chairman of Mind Medicine Australia which he established with his wife, Tania de Jong, in 2018. Mind Medicine Australia supports clinical research and works towards regulatory-approved and evidence-based psychedelic-assisted therapies.

In our conversation today we explore a course that Mind Medicine Australia has developed to help train the next generation of clinicians. Peter shares his views on the applications of MDMA and psychedelic assisted therapy as well as some of his own personal journey.

You can connect with Mind Medicine Australia via their website mindmedicineaustralia.org.au

Dr Stephen Bright is a clinically trained psychologist and senior lecturer on addiction at Edith Cowan University. Dr. Bright is the director of PRISM, the Psychedelic Research in Science and Medicine organisation which is a not for profit, independent research charity developing medical and legal processes for the application of psychedelic medicines for improved well being in Australia.

In this conversation Dr. Stephen shares an update on the research for MDMA and psylicybin in the US and Australia, some of the results of the studies, the reactions from the clinical community, regulators and the public as well as Dr. Bright’s view on how psychedelic assisted therapy will come to play a role in clinical practice.

Some websites we discussed:

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ is the platform to find out which studies are running

https://www.prism.org.au/prismsresearch/ is a summary of research and PRISM’s website

You can connect with Dr. Bright here: [email protected]

The drug-harm chart by Prof David Nutt has been summarised well here:

https://www.businessinsider.com/chart-drugs-that-cause-the-most-harm-2013-9

The original paper from Prof David Nutt was published in the Lancet and can be found here:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/47635105_Nutt_DJ_King_LA_Phillips_LD_Drug_harms_in_the_UK_a_multicriteria_decision_analysis_Lancet_376_1558-1565

Today we’re speaking with Dr. Tracey Sletten, a senior research fellow from the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health at Monash University.

Dr. Sletten is an expert on sleep and in our conversation we do a deep dive into how shift work affects sleep and how to improve sleep as much as possible while still working as a shift worker.

If you’d like to connect with Dr. Tracey or her team you can do so via [email protected] or on twitter @tracey_sletten

At 16 Emma attempted suicide and was left paralyzed. Now, at 21, Emma is a passionate mental health advocate. She take us on a journey of what led up to her attempt and her thought processes immediately before, during and after and ultimately her recovery. Emma reflects on meaningful ways in which to reach out and support someone that may be at risk. She now uses her story as a powerful instrument to support others.

Emma’s story is particularly relevant this week as it’s suicide prevention week.

You can reach out to Emma’s team as well as finding out how to watch her incredible documentary My Ascension here:

https://www.myascension.us/

For emergency support contact:

13 11 14 in Australia for Lifeline, a crisis support and suicide prevention service

1800 273 8255 in the USA for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline

Today we continue speaking with Professor Sean Drummond, a Cognitive Neuroscientist and Clinical Psychologist at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health at Monash University.

In part 2 of our conversation, we explore the relationship between poor sleep and mental illnesses - how one can be caused by the other. We talk about cognitive based therapy for insomnia (CBTI), the current gold standard for the treatment of poor sleep, medication for insomnia and the role that it has in treatment. Finally we circle around to the resources available to help people with poor sleep, and some tips to achieve better quality sleep.

Resources:

The Australasian Sleep Association (offers a list of providers)

https://www.sleep.org.au/

The Sleep Health Foundation

https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/sean-drummond

Today we’re speaking with Professor Sean Drummond, a sleep expert, Cognitive Neuroscientist and Clinical Psychologist at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health at Monash University.

We have split this conversation into 2 parts, in this, part 1 we cover the mechanics of sleep, how much sleep do we need, how much we actually get, the price for insufficient sleep, Sleep patterns, Caffeine and alcohol and how they impact sleep, Insomnia and sleep apnoea. We touch on 4 key things that you can do to improve your sleep.

Today we’re speaking with Dr. Jarrod White, a Clinical Psychologist working in private practice at The Viewpoint clinic in Caulfield Melbourne. During Dr. White's research he had the opportunity to conduct face to face interviews with holocaust survivors and Sudanese genocide survivors. During our conversation, Dr. White shares some of his research and the key themes of how trauma is processed and expressed differently within different cultures.

Today we speak with Professor Paul Fitzgerald who has been involved in the development, evaluation and clinical implementation of new treatments for mental health disorders for 2 decades. He pioneered the use of TMS in Australia and is internationally renowned as a leader in the field of brain stimulation and device based treatments in psychiatry.

In our conversation we discuss what TMS is, the mechanisms of how we believe it works, we discuss how it’s administered, side effects, it’s efficacy and the costs and funding available in Australia.

This conversation was recorded in November of 2021, since this time the Australian government has added TMS to the  rebate scheme as Prof. Fitzgerald mentioned.

Professor Paul Fitzgerald has been the Director of Epworth Centre for Innovation in Mental Health (ECIMH) but is currently in the process of transitioning to a role as Director of the School of Medicine and Psychology at ANU through which you can connect with him.

You can find a list of TMS relevant publications by Prof Fitzgerald on his website at paulbfitzgerald.com/

Today we talk to Phil Armstrong, CEO of the Australian Counselling Association (ACA), about the ethics of client patient dynamics and what happens when a clinician develops romantic feelings towards their client or visa versa. Phil, as the head of the ACA, is in the perfect position to provide some guidance and boundaries on these sorts of ethical questions. As you’ll hear from our conversation, Phil draws on his own clinical experience as well as that of their 7000 members.

We’ll be taking a break over December and Jan and will post our next podcast in Feb.

Thank you for your support and for tuning into conversations about mental health. We hope these conversations have sparked your curiosity and have given you new insights into your own lives and of those close to you.

We wish you a safe festive season, take care of yourself and we’ll see you in 2022.