In this episode of Ayahuasca Podcast, host Sam Believ (founder of http://www.lawayra.com) has a conversation with Dr. Chandra Khalifian, a clinical psychologist, researcher, and educator based in San Diego. Chandra is a pioneer in psychedelic-assisted couple therapy and co-founder of ENA, a clinic and research center focused on healing relationships through ketamine and MDMA-assisted therapy.

We touch upon topics of:

  • Ketamine-assisted couple therapy and its origins [00:02:00]
  • Intimacy development and trust violations in relationships [00:06:00]
  • PTSD in couples and how MDMA therapy helps [00:10:00]
  • Why “it’s never about the dishes” – deeper relational wounds [00:14:00]
  • How psychedelics like Ayahuasca can shift ego and improve relationships [00:16:00]
  • The challenge of integrating solo psychedelic work in a couple dynamic [00:18:00]
  • The idea of conscious uncoupling with psychedelics [00:20:00]
  • Ketamine’s safety, addictive potential, and dosing differences [00:25:00]
  • The published framework for ketamine-assisted couple therapy [00:28:00]
  • Attachment styles, co-dependency, and emotional regulation in couples [00:31:00]
  • Teaching couples to validate each other’s emotional experiences [00:34:00]
  • Integration tools and the need for more research on psychedelic couple therapy [00:38:00]
  • A powerful story of forgiveness during a ketamine-assisted session [00:42:00]

If you would like to attend one of our Ayahuasca retreats go to http://www.lawayra.com

Find more about Dr. Chandra Khalifian at http://www.enamarie.org or contact her directly at chandra@enamarie.org.

Transcript

Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: I think that our culture, or many cultures really emphasize relationship that lasts a lifetime as a success. And we recognize healthy relationships with connection and love and adventure and commitment as success, however long those last. So staying in a miserable relationship for your entire life, that’s not a.

Relationship success. That’s not a life success. And sometimes people do psychedelics and realize we’re different people or we have different values. One of the things that psychedelics can be so helpful for is conscious uncoupling. So rather than getting to a place where there’s so much pain and destruction that you leave and hate each other, you can do psychedelics together and really talk through what you’ve learned and what you love, what you’re grateful for.

And then. Come to the completion of your relationship and still have love for this person and be friends.

Sam Believ: Hi guys, and welcome to Ayahuasca podcast. As always, we do the whole assembly, and today I’m having a conversation with Chandra Kian. Yes. Chandra is a PhD. She’s a renowned clinical psychologist, researcher and educator based in San Diego, California. She’s a leading expert in psychedelic assisted couple therapy and a co-founder of N Emory, a Pioneer Clinic and Training Institute specializing in legal psychedelic therapies for relationship healing.

This episode is sponsored by Laira Ayahuasca Retreat. At Laira, we combine affordability. Accessibility and authenticity. The Yra Connect, heal, grow. Guys, I’m looking forward to hosting you, Chandra, welcome to the show.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Sam Believ: So we’re coming to you once again from maps. There’s lots of great people here.

So Chandra is one of them. Chandra, tell us a little bit about yourself and what, your upbringing or your life and what brought you to this line of work.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yeah. Yeah. So first, a little bit about Enam E. Enam E is a psychedelic assisted couple, therapy clinic, training institute and research center.

I have always worked with couples, so in grad school I studied intimacy development and trust violations. And then made my way to San Diego for internship. It’s one of the only sites in the country that specializes in couple therapy, and my mentor, Leslie Moreland, was doing a couple’s PTSD trial, and so started working with Leslie and that was really where I got to merge my love for psychedelics and couple therapy.

I worked on an MDMA assisted couple therapy trial for PTSD and started working in the ketamine clinic and we were, I think, the first people who started doing ketamine assisted couple therapy. We have the first published framework on ketamine assisted couple therapy and ketamine because it is a dissociative.

It can move couples out of these very rigid patterns that they get stuck in. So if a couple is coming to couple therapy, it’s because they’re stuck somewhere. And we say stuck in the same conflict loops and ketamine can pull you out of that and you can see your pattern from a different space.

And so rather than you against your partner, it can be all three of us and looking at this together. And we can start to shift the pattern together. There’s more openness and empathy and flexibility. And then therapists started reaching out to us to get training and so we very kinda like naturally developed the training institute and are now fundraising to do research.

Sam Believ: So it wasn’t one of those stories where you had relationship issues and then you started to learn about relationships. ‘Cause most psychologists become psychology because they

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: yeah. I, my parents got divorced when I was in grade school and I never saw healthy relationships.

I saw a lot of conflict and alcohol use and avoidance. And of course, like any human, you want secure attachment. You want love, and and I think I have a little bit more of a drive for that. I was always really interested in reading about relationships and attachment theory. And so when I got to college, I did undergrad at uc, Berkeley I started working in a human development lab and learning about how we develop trust with people.

Then applied to grad school to study relationships. So it was, it was a personal drive to understand connection. And then, yeah, it’s the most interesting line of work I think, in the world. Learning about love and how to build it, how to would definitely need a more loving world.

Sam Believ: I was just randomly met a person that I interviewed before and we were talking about that and immediately two men talking start talking about relationships and we realized that it is the ultimate boss.

It’s if a game is life that is not designed to ever be one because you lose interest and you wanna stop playing relationships, is that thing which constantly provides this chaos element, especially for us men interacting with booma. So for me, this topic is near and dear. I have a wife, I have three kids, and I think about all those things every day.

And of course there, there needs to be some interest from yourself or to have this drive to research and first consciously or unconsciously. So he imagines something intimacy development and trust violations. It’s really interesting. Can you talk to us what it is and why did you study it and where did you learn?

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yeah, so when I got to grad school, most couples research was on most couples research was on conflict scenarios. So we would put couples in a lab and give them a problem to solve. And so all of our research was on. How do couples solve problems? And I was really interested in like how do couples build closeness?

Not just solve problems does mean, and intimacy theory says that the way that we create closeness is by one person disclosing vulnerability and the other person being responsive. So if I tell you something challenging about my childhood and you are present and engaged and responsive, I’ll feel closer to you.

And that happens a lot at the beginning of relationships, right? As we’re getting to know someone. But then over time, typically the vulnerabilities that I’ll come to you with are vulnerabilities about us, right? A time that you hurt me or violated my trust or a betrayal, right? Those are the really deep vulnerable conversations.

So I randomly assigned couples to either talk about. Personal vulnerabilities, right? My childhood, or a vulnerability in the relationship. And when couples talk about it was in line with intimacy theory. So when couples talk about those personal vulnerabilities, it’s easy for the person to be responsive and they create closeness.

When couples talk about a vulnerability in the relationship, we get defensive, right? And we feel more distant, not. I looked at mindfulness and secure attachment as moderators. So if someone has higher levels of mindfulness, ability to stay present, engaged, open, flexible, they were able to be responsive, also secure attachment.

So feeling safe in the relationship and other things that we can teach, right? Couples can learn mindfulness together. Couples can build secure attachment.

Sam Believ: So this is so near and dear to me. ’cause that’s my life every day. My wife has a conflict with her family. Amazing. I support her every day is good, but then she comes and complains to me about me and I don’t know what to do.

I get what do you expect? Should I attack myself? Or, it’s very complicated. And you also mentioned, so

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: what you can do. Is listen and be curious. It’s hard when it’s about you, but what you can say to her is I understand you’re feeling some pain right now. Can you tell me more about when that comes up for you?

But it’s hard ’cause then you have to listen to someone like complain about you.

Sam Believ: So I understand this and I know this, I have a, we have a relationship code. Yeah. And that’s exactly what he tells me, always be curious and ask and yeah. I just can’t seem to be able to do it in this moment what I personally, what we get, we have a good relationship, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a podcast about, going deeper. It’s a great relationship, but when we do have this standstill and we’re like, you guys, you said, couples get stuck. Yeah. What helps for me personally is sometimes we’re stuck, but then I go and I drink ayahuasca and I, something gets unstuck and then I can come back and we can.

Kind of push through and then make it all work again. So psychedelics are amazing. That case there and we’ll go back to it, but something you mentioned that I really don’t want to skip over ’cause I’ve never heard that term before, which is couples PTSD, what is that?

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Cognitive behavioral conjoint therapy for PTSD is an evidence-based couple therapy for PTSD and it has a few different components to it.

So the first component is kind of psychoeducation about PTSD and developing safety in the relationship. Then the couple learns communication skills and starts doing kind of approach or exposure. And then challenging and stuck story stories related to PTSD. So kind of PTSD symptoms. A lot of trauma treatments don’t actually do psychoed about PTSD, which I think is a disservice.

So when we experience a trauma and we develop PTSD. The first symptom is re-experiencing. So we have memories, or dreams or nightmares, and our body doesn’t know the difference between something that’s happening in our mind or something that’s happening in real life. So if I’m having a memory of a trauma, I’m gonna have a physiological response.

My heart’s gonna start pounding, my stomach’s gonna get upset, my muscles are gonna get tense. And that is really distressing and we want to avoid that. So we numb out, we avoid, we use substances, we distract, and that doesn’t do anything to get rid of our memories. So then we start trying to avoid ourselves and our world gets smaller and smaller.

And PTSD symptoms become more intense and it influences the relationship, right? And partners don’t always know what is PTSD and what is just my partner. Being me or conflictual or aggressive, or not wanting to come with me to anything, right? Those are all symptoms and PTSD, so when they do the treatment together, they learn together, they do approach assignments together.

They’re challenging these really rigid stuck thoughts, like the world’s not safe together. And then when it’s done with MDMA, the couple will do kinda that first phase. Learning about PTSD communication skills and there’s been different studies. So in the VA, only a veteran can take medicine. So the veteran does the MDMA session by themselves.

They do everything else with their partner, CBCT preparation, integration when it’s done in the community. Michael, mid Hofer and Annie and Wagner and Candace Monson did it in the community. They did medicine together. So couples did MDMA sessions together and we’re finding that you couldn’t just go like a lot deeper.

MDMA creates an environment where you can move into your trauma and feel. Completely safe and supported. You’re flooded with serotonin and dopamine and oxytocin and vasopressin. Like everything of around you is safe. You are safe. And so that hyper arousal symptom is gone and you can go back into the memories without avoidance.

Sam Believ: Why why is it never about dishes? Why is it never about dishes? Yeah. You say it’s never about dishes.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Because the dishes represent something below the surface. Some vulnerability. And are you thinking about my, like Instagram

Sam Believ: post, something that I’ve heard you say, it’s never about the dishes?

Yeah.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: It’s about whatever that deeper vulnerability is for the couple. I feel alone. I don’t feel like we’re a team. I’m not acknowledged and couples often will stay up there in content. Laundry, dishes, finances. It’s some deeper vulnerability.

Sam Believ: That’s what I learned as well recently, relatively recently, and I’m 37 so I’m keep learning, but I, something would happen that’s very like.

Irrelevant. So small. Yeah. And I would get this exorbitant reaction. Yeah. From my wife. I’m like, yeah. And then I would get angry at her for overreacting. And then once we go deeper, we find out that, it was not about that all along, it’s just the accumulation and there’s always a reason

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: and we can’t do anything.

About, you can do the dishes, but that doesn’t actually do anything to address that tender. Soft vulnerability. And so you could continue fighting about the dishes all the time and you could continue to try to make changes that she’s asking for. And there will actually never be the healing that she’s looking for, the acknowledgement, being seen, being loved, whatever it is that’s under.

So

Sam Believ: how does it look like? What is that healing looks like and where does. Ketamine, MDMA or other psychedelics come in?

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yeah we always do an assessment with a couple when they come in and we identify the pattern that they’re getting stuck in. And then with ketamine we identify where in the pattern ketamine can support and a mechanisms of change.

So where are the behavioral places we’re getting stuck? Where are we getting stuck in our mind? What thoughts are impacting distance? And then what are those deeper vulnerabilities? And we’re working to interrupt the conflict cycle and actually talk about the vulnerabilities. And just as you said, like when you have a conflict, you’ll go drink ayahuasca and have this deeper understanding of what’s happening and more openness.

That’s exactly the same with ketamine, the mechanisms. So you’ll have a medicine session and you’ll have more openness and willingness to hear your partner’s perspective and validate their pain rather than jumping into that defensiveness.

Sam Believ: It gives you that window. Yes, and I’ve never tried Ketamine or MDMA.

I am I’m sticking right now. To like ancient stuff, a thousand years plus. That’s my element, but I’m open in the future. But what it does to me personally, it gi ayahuasca gives me that window of maybe not being my ego. Yeah. Your ego is oh, you keep doing this to me.

I’m gonna be protective of that. Ego goes away and everything, and the only thing that’s left was love. Yeah. And you are like, you can’t even be angry. It’s just impossible. So I come back. Home, up the ceremony and hug my wife, and then we start talking and it gets better. Then she gets upset with me because she is you drank ayahuasca and now you feel better.

But I didn’t, and I, and she still gets, she’s still stuck in this loops. And then she can always go and drink ayahuasca, but we have a newborn, not a newborn, but 10 months old baby. So it’s. It’s difficult. So maybe in those cases things like ketamine could be a bit more easier.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yeah. Ketamine’s, I mean it’s very safe. It’s used with children in the emergency department, right? So it is very safe. But that experience that you have is so common, particularly with we do some work, with, we have colleagues with Mission within, and veterans go to Mexico to do Ibogaine.

And their partners don’t go with them.

And people often have the experience of you’ve gone off and had this life changing experience and now yes, you’re in this place where you are open and loving and everything’s different, but I’m still here and nothing’s changed for me. And so there’s a big disconnect. And so we’re actually trying to develop some protocols where they can do preparation together.

They can have some insight at least to what’s happening, and then they can integrate together. ’cause we don’t like. That’s definitely not the outcome that we want, is for people to heal and then come back into an environment where there is more disconnect.

Sam Believ: This episode is sponsored by Lara Ioas Retreat.

Most of Lara, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, some of you might’ve already been. To LA before. For those who don’t know us yet, we started Lara with my wife four years ago. At Lara, we combine authenticity, accessibility, and affordability. Lara is currently highest rated Iowas retreat in South America with more than 635 star reviews and an average rating of five stars.

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At the same time, we keep it very affordable. At the moment, we have retreats starting at as low as $645. So whether you’re coming for healing, clarity or a deeper connection to yourself. Lare is the best choice. If it is your first time drinking Ayahuasca, you will love our three and a half hour preparation course and integration support.

All of that is included in price as well as pick up from Metagene accommodation in Ayahuasca. There are no hidden fees. Visit lare.com to book your retreat or learn more. Laira Connect, heal. Grow L-A-W-A-Y-R a.com. Yeah. That’s why I say I like to say couples that drink together stay together as in ayahuasca.

Because even we’re talking about conflict situation, let’s even say there is no conflict If a wife or a husband starts working with ayahuasca, starts going deeper, healing, learning, and growing, they start to gradually disconnect. Yeah. It’s like you have to stay in the same level because otherwise eventually you’ll be.

You’ll become a better person and you’ll just inevitably face the fact that your partner is dragging you down. So it’s important that we synchronize that.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yeah. It’s important to grow together.

Sam Believ: So what would you tell two couples that are afraid to work with psychedelics Because they think that they will get realization that they have to dump each other.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yeah, sometimes that happens. We work in our clinic, we work with people in all different relationship structures. And I think that our culture or many cultures really emphasize like. A relationship that lasts a lifetime as a success. And we recognize healthy relationships with connection and love and adventure and commitment as success, however long those last.

So staying in a miserable relationship. For your entire life. That’s not a relationship success. That’s not a life success. And sometimes people do psychedelics and realize we’re different people or we have different values. One of the things that psychedelics can be so helpful for is conscious uncoupling.

So rather than getting to a place where there’s so much pain and destruction that you leave and hate each other, you can. Do psychedelics together and really talk through what you’ve learned and what you love, what you’re grateful for, and then come to the completion of your relationship and still have love for this person and be friends.

That’s not something that our culture promotes in any way, and that is a lot of the work that we do.

Sam Believ: May I share, what you just shared with me about Iran and Israel or is, like you wouldn’t wanna mention it.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: You can share.

Sam Believ: Yeah. No, it’s just because, very interesting ’cause you talk about your previous relationship was with an Iranian man and your current relationship and

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: he’s American.

Sam Believ: Now the, now your relationship with Israeli man is we’re talking about relationships and past and present and Yeah.

Now this whole situation, none of it adds much context, but I think it’s just in a way kinda, there’s something there. I don’t know. Yeah.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: I think I’ve continued to try to come from a place of love and my partner and I have had many conversations about. War and the state of the world. And I am a clinical psychologist that does trauma treatment.

And so I, my entire life’s work is like healing people from the psychological trauma of war. And there are humans everywhere that are suffering. And I think that. Progressing through life takes all different kinds of people, and I just continue to maintain my stance that it’s like I’m trying to approach the world with love and healing, and sometimes that makes things complicated.

And ultimately I think that is what the world needs.

Sam Believ: Yeah. It feels like we’re about to have a lot more war once again and, a lot more P ts d and we still have not even, what happened here at MAPS with the MDMA files? Yeah. So

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: I think it, we’re

Sam Believ: not prepared for more P ts DI

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: think it’s interesting that this moment in time is also like when psychedelics are having this intense resurgence and I don’t know that is my accident.

Sam Believ: I have a feeling I thought about it for a long time that it could be our only way out in a way. Maybe if we can convince all those presidents to Great Iowa store something maybe, we’ll, there will be no wars. Yeah. It’s hard to imagine killing each other once you get this clear realization that we are I completely agree.

We’re the same thing. Let’s go back to the topic of ketamine because I have not talked to much people on ketamine and like ketamine seems almost too good to be true. But there is this aspect of potentially getting addicted to it. So if somebody wants to work with ketamine how can they maybe mitigate it or prevent this addictive potential?

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yeah. So we work with ketamine, sublingually. So it’s a lozenge that de dissolves in your mouth and it’s absorbed through your mucus membrane and the dosages that we work with. There’s not an addictive potential. And you’re doing it in a setting with a therapist, or even if you’re doing self-guided at home, right?

You’re sent your prescription, which is like one journey at a time where people are having some challenges with addiction or dependence is when people are doing it recreationally. And for the most part, they’re doing it intranasally and you can just keep doing it and you have unlimited access and it’s really it’s a dissociative.

So people are using it to avoid,

Sam Believ: to dissociate.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yeah.

Sam Believ: So basically oral absorption is, I guess then it’s the same as nicotine. If you, for example, comparing smoking cigars. So sorry. Smoking cigarettes to smoking cigars, to using rap. Rap. I get, I’ve seen so many people get so addicted to it so quick because it’s the quicker, the absorption, the fire.

Is the addiction rate, is it similar or maybe

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: with nicotine? Yes. Ketamine’s a little bit different because it’s just a very different experience. And so when you do sublingual, like you’re going into a. A dissociated state. And you can’t exist like that. Whereas like intranasal ketamine, you can still, lots of people do it like at CLOs, right?

So you can do it and then still dance and function, but you’re just like floaty and so you can just keep doing it at whatever level you want. It’s not a therapeutic experience.

Sam Believ: I see. It’s basically, it’s pleasant enough to, for you to be able to addicted to it as opposed to, let’s say deep dose, big doses of ketamine where you go to K Hall and it’s not that pleasant or ayahuasca where you don’t know whether you’re gonna feel great or you’re gonna feel really challenging.

It gives you that yeah, offset. Can you talk about your paper or kain for couples?

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yes.

Sam Believ: And what did you find? And

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: so it is a theoretical paper with some qualitative data. It’s really our framework. And so it talks through building an assessment and then the mechanisms of change. So a little bit of what we talked about with.

Cognitive mechanism. So if I’m having thoughts that I’m a burden or I’m worthless, ketamine creates flexibility so we can shift our thoughts. If I am very avoidant from my partner behaviorally, ketamine can create openness there. So I’m more likely to approach these challenging discussions if I’m feeling.

Emotionally, a lot of resentment. We find this a lot with like infidelity. A lot of resentments unwilling to forgive. Ketamine can create openness in that space. So the paper is the framework and then some qualitative experiences of the couples that went through it. We are fundraising right now to actually do like a clinical trial of this model.

So we don’t have quantitative data yet. We don’t have trial data.

Sam Believ: On the topic of couples and psychedelics that’s a question I get a lot as well, is should it do it together? Should it do it separately? Both. None.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yeah. I think that if they can do it together and are willing to do it together, they should always do it together.

What you were saying of you, no matter what, from every experience, you’re gonna grow in some way and it’s traveling with your partner, right? Like you’re having this experience that is leading you to be a different person in some way. And when you do that with your partner, you get to grow with your partner.

I think that if they’re not doing medicine together, they should always integrate together.

Sam Believ: That’s a great idea. Yeah. What I normally tell people is we’ve seen both four versions work together and separately, sometimes. Separately is better because they, let’s say they want to go to the word circle and complain about their partner and they might not be able to do it.

Yeah, but I’m talking about group setting. Would I ask specifically? Yeah. And but I, I always say it’s better to do both. Do separately first that together, or do together and then separately. Because as long as you’re together, you’re set up in a way forced to constantly go through the relationship. I. I notice sometimes my wife, when she knows that I’m, so I drink, I ask her maybe once a month when she knows I’m going to drink.

She tries to consciously or self subconsciously quiet with me.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Oh, okay. Opposite.

Sam Believ: So then when I go to the ceremony, I’m thinking about the relationship. She’s very smart.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: She brings up all the things she wants you to think about. Yeah.

Sam Believ: She’s very smart. Yeah. You mentioned something like anxious avoidant, like attached to styles.

Can you talk about that and talk about codependency and this topic?

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yeah, so we develop our attachment styles. Our attachment styles can change throughout our life. I’ll preface with that, but we develop our attachment styles with our caregiver, these studies were done by a woman named Mary Ainsworth long time ago.

It’s called a Strange Situation.

Parents would leave their babies alone in the room and leave, and they watched how the babies responded. So if you are anxiously attached, you’ll start crying, looking for your parents. No one will be able to console you. If you’re avoidantly attached, you’re like.

Whatever parent’s gone. When parent comes back, you also don’t really respond. A securely attached baby will cry when caregiver leaves for a little bit and then settle, and then when the parent comes back, they’ll be able to be soothed. And so then our romantic partners in adulthood, they are our attachment figures and so we can have the same attachment styles in those relationships.

Or if your partner. Is responsive and supportive. What we talked about with intimacy development, you can develop secure attachment and you can have people who are like anxious, avoidance, avoidant, anxious avoidance, and codependency is where you require your partner to do all of your. Regulation, right?

So as an adult we should learn how to self-regulate, but when you are dysregulated constantly away from your partner and the two of you are depending on each other constantly to regulate, and that’s really the only way you regulate, it can become very dysfunctional and hard to function without them.

That’s the anxious war. That can be anxious avoidant. That can be anxious. Anxious. If both has

Sam Believ: secure, then you don’t have this,

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: if you both have secure, you’re not gonna have, you’re not gonna have dysfunctional codependency. Every relationship. To some extent. You’re dependent on your partner, right?

Your partner does things for you. You do things for your partner. You live together. You’ve learned how to function together. So depending on your partner is not necessarily bad. Depending on your partner for all of your emotion regulation that is going to be dysfunctional

Sam Believ: and there’s also co independency, or what’s the phrase?

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Co

Sam Believ: independency like when you’re. Above you, both independent and then together you are independent together. It’s a words. My coach used one, so I might be wrong.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Okay. By what you’re saying, I would imagine two people who are very independents. And can function fine in life. As independent people put

Sam Believ: together.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Put together,

Sam Believ: yeah.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: In a relationship.

Sam Believ: Okay. I don’t even know enough to ask the question okay. I’m learning. You talk about intimacy development, it’s important and also importance of teaching couples how to validate others’ feelings. Would you talk a little bit about that and Yeah.

Basically imagine that we have. Bunch of people from dysfunctional couples listening and we wanna help them do this and also learn about ketamine and just give them enough information to improve.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yes. So validating your partner at the most basic sense is saying your experience makes sense to me and all behaviors.

If you can truly put yourself in your partner’s shoes. For the most part, all behaviors make sense. So when your partner is coming to you with some pain, whether that’s about you or something else, stop talking. Just be present with your partner and really try to see the world through their eyes. H and validate their feelings, validating their feelings is at the most basic sense.

I understand what you’re saying. Based on your experience, everything that you’re feeling makes sense.

Sam Believ: Why is it so hard?

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Because, ’cause we have our own perspectives and it’s really hard to just scooch our perspective out of the

Sam Believ: case. ’cause to validate means to make valid means. This is true. And obviously from your perspective it’s very untrue.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: But from their perspective, it’s true.

Sam Believ: Any tips?

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: I people can approach this as if you’re listening to a friend and with our friends it’s really easy to show up and be present because it’s not so personal, right? And so if you can really just move your perspective out of the way, you will have time for your perspective.

But one person goes at a time. Have your partner go first. If you’re practicing this, move your perspective out of the way and just show up with them in their perspective. You can say to your partner, I really wanna understand what you’re experiencing. I also want to share with you what I’m experiencing.

I’m going to 100% be here with you. And then can I also share with you what’s important to me? Will you also show up for me? Most people are not gonna say, no, I’m not gonna do that for you. Most people are gonna say, of course, thank you for being here with me. I also wanna understand you. But they’re more likely to do that after they feel understood.

Sam Believ: What if I, and that’s a very recent example, what if I sit down, I listen to my wife for an hour and a half, no interrupting, and I try my best to do this. That’s exactly what my coach does. And then I start talking and she interrupts me every five minutes.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yeah, that’s where couple therapy is really important.

Sam Believ: Yeah.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Because. Maybe some people just are not going to have this skill to do this and they’re gonna need a structure around that. So I always tell people, go to couple therapy sooner rather than later. Most couples wait five years of distress before they get help. Don’t do that If you’re struggling, get some help, get some tools, but why not go together though?

Sam Believ: Yes. What is the best modality for integration for couples year?

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: So this is a new field, right? There are not, there’s very little out there on psychedelic assisted couple therapy. The model that we are developing, what we’re trying to do is make it accessible to everyone regardless of their background.

And so people are constantly developing these new interventions and calling these treatments interventions and targets new names, which makes it, which separates everyone a lot. So in our integration model, we are calling. The treatment integration mechanisms, like what they actually are. So softening into vulnerability, reflecting your partner’s feeling challenging, maladaptive thoughts so that it can be accessible to everyone.

We don’t have any research on what integration method is best for couples. This is a completely new field. We need data.

Sam Believ: Hopefully you can get some funding and get some research. Yeah. I don’t know if anyone very rich listening to this podcast can help us out. If somebody would, what’s the how, the, how does one support your research?

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yeah, they can go to our website, ena marie.org. We are we’re in the process of. Getting our nonprofit, our fiscal, we have a fiscal sponsor right now. Nautilus, they were maps was their fiscal sponsor. So we have some really good mentors and supporters with us, but we can take philanthropy dollars now.

We have all of our research protocols and we have models for increasing access to our training. So there are different places where your money can go immediately, and we can talk with you about those different options.

Sam Believ: Perfect. Do you yourself only work with Kamin or you work with other plant medicines?

Have you tried the Oscar?

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: I am not able to talk about my personal experiences because of my government positions. But I work with. In my clinical trials, I work with MDMA. I’m also working on a psilocybin trial right now. And then we work with Ketamine in our practice.

Sam Believ: Okay, that makes sense. Too bad the government is around this way.

We have like lots, health practitioners, first responders coming to my retreat because they’re ETSD to shreds and it really helps them. But they can’t even tell their coworkers. I know. They’re like, sometimes they say I came back and everyone was like, what did you do? Whatever this is, and they did some yoga.

It’s it’s a very powerful yoga that, and they can’t share. Yeah. And it’s almost like unfair. How come they. They’re the ones like first in lines, but they’re not allowed to be depressed or anxious because they’re gonna lose their job world is unfair.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: I’m hoping that changes and I am grateful for people like you.

Sam Believ: Yeah, hopefully slowly but surely we can change that and events like maps for those, for watching this, it’s like in the back of us, there’s like s of people back and forth, exhibit halls, many businesses. It’s pretty, pretty inspiring for things happening. Last question can you just tell us maybe an anonymous story of anonymous couple of that worked with Ketamine?

Or can be other psychedelics, but they had this, the psychedelic assisted couples therapy, which I think is something you’ve, you pioneered and had good outcomes. Like what? Any story, any success story. Did you Yeah.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yeah. One of my couples that this was a very moving experience for me, so I had worked with them for a while.

It was a infidelity couple and, the wife was having a very part-time with forgiveness. She wanted to forgive. She wanted to move past the affair and reconnect with her partner, and she was in a space of didn’t even know what forgiveness could feel like. And forgiveness very much is like for you.

It’s the decision to release attachment to a painful past. When you’re still in partnership with that person, of course it impacts, right how you’re able to relate. And they did a ketamine medicine session together and one really nice thing about ketamine is that it’s very physiological and so you feel the medicine in your body, and her intention was to understand what the feeling of forgiveness was and to be able to forgive her partner.

She had the experience of laying in a river and the water was flowing around her and she had very rigid thoughts around my partner’s gonna do this again. If I do forgive, I’m not gonna feel safe in the relationship. She felt the water move into her head and wrap around those thoughts and into her heart and wrap around the resentment, and through her body and through her legs, and out her feet.

And she said that was for her, the feeling of forgiveness, feeling the water moves through her body and releasing those very stuck thoughts and pain. And so then in integration, she also understood this isn’t a one and done. But now I know what it feels like. And so when these thoughts come up that separate me from my partner, I can go back into the feeling of letting the water rush through me and continue this practice of releasing.

And she continues to do it. When she gets to a stuck place, she continues to come back to that physiological experience.

Sam Believ: Amazing story. Thank you so much for this episode. That was personally for me, very interesting. ’cause I am a man in the relationship. Awesome. Said. I’m sure people listening will identify with some of it.

Where can people learn more about you? About, you’ve already mentioned what to find your project, but you can remind it again.

Dr. Chandra Khalifian: Yeah. So our website is ena marie.org. You can also Google me, Chandra Kian, you’ll find all of my papers and I’ve presented at conferences around the world. All that stuff’s online.

My email is chandra@enamarie.org. I’m easy reach, I’m responsive. Perfect.

Sam Believ: Thank you Chandra. Thank you guys for listening. As always with you, your host Andif, and I will see you in the next episode. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you’d like to support us and psychedelic renaissance at large, please follow us and leave us a like wherever it is you’re listening.

Share this episode with someone who will benefit from this information. Nothing in this podcast is intended as medical advice, and it is for educational and entertainment purposes only. This episode is sponsored by Lara Ayahuasca Retreat. At Lara, we combine affordability, accessibility, and authenticity.

Lara Connect, heal. Guys, I’m looking forward to hosting you.