PT 642 - Michael Sapiro PhD - Truth Medicine, Psychedelics, and Living Your Truth
Release Date: 11/28/2025
PT 642 - Michael Sapiro PhD - Truth Medicine, Psychedelics, and Living Your Truth
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, joins Kyle Buller to explore truth, healing, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy through the lens of his new book, . A clinical psychologist, ordained Zen Buddhist monk, retreat leader, and fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, he blends Buddhist psychology, trauma work, and consciousness studies. The discussion focuses on how people discover and live their truth, and why that truth becomes the core medicine in healing. Early in the Podcast with Michael Sapiro describes how years of clinical work and retreat facilitation shaped his understanding of healing....
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PT 641 - Joe Moore & Kyle Buller - Holotropic Breathwork, Somatics, and Foundations for Psychedelic Work
Psychedelics Today
sits at the center of this wide ranging conversation between Psychedelics Today co-founders Joe Moore and Kyle Buller. Drawing from decades of personal practice and assorted types of breathwork facilitation, they explore how breathwork methods from the Grof lineage including can prepare people for psychedelic work, support difficult journeys, and deepen integration over time. Kyle shares how his near death experience, somatic training, and breathwork facilitation shaped this new course on breathwork foundations, while Joe reflects on how reading Dr Stanislav Grof and years of experience in...
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PT 640 - Alexander Beiner - Psychedelics, Culture, and the Games We Play
Psychedelics Today
Alexander joins Psychedelics Today to explore how psychedelics, culture, and power shape each other. A writer, facilitator, and co founder of the conference and the media platform , he has spent years thinking about how psychedelic experiences ripple into politics, economics, conflict, and community. In this episode, he and Joe trace the path from early internet forums to today’s psychedelic renaissance, and ask what it would mean to bring a truly psychedelic perspective into our institutions. Beiner is less interested in psychedelics as a niche medical tool and more interested in how they...
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PT 639 - Evelyn Eddy Shoop PMHNP-BC: Lived Experience, Qualitative Data, and the Future of Psychedelic Care
Psychedelics Today
Overview Evelyn Eddy Shoop PMHNP-BC joins Psychedelics Today to share her journey from Division I athlete to psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and psilocybin research participant. In this conversation, she explains how sports injuries, OCD, and intensive treatment led her into psychiatry and eventually into a psilocybin clinical trial at Yale. Her story weaves together lived experience, clinical training, and a call for more humane systems of care and better qualitative data in psychedelic science. Early Themes: Injury, OCD, and Choosing Psychiatry Early in the episode, Evelyn...
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PT 638 - Dr Jason Konner - Psychedelic Oncologist
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe Moore sits down with Dr. Jason Konner, a longtime oncologist who recently left his full-time clinical role at to devote himself to the emerging intersection of cancer care and psychedelics. Dr Konner shares how, after more than two decades treating people, he hit a wall. The accumulated grief, constant exposure to death, and intensity of oncology left him deeply , though he didn’t have that language for it at the time. A chance moment in a yoga class, overhearing someone say “ retreat” just before he was scheduled for hernia surgery, became the turning point....
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PT 637 - Genesee Herzberg — Ketamine Truths, MDMA Hopes, and the Work of Integration
Psychedelics Today
Clinical psychologist Dr. Genesee Herzberg joins Kyle to reflect on two decades in trauma work and 15 years inside the psychedelic ecosystem—from early MAPS conferences to running Sage Integrative Health. She traces how personal psychedelic experiences set her on a path of service, research at CIIS on MDMA-assisted therapy, and hands-on roles with MAPS: Zendo Project harm reduction, adherence rating, and ultimately serving as an MDMA therapist in clinical trials. Today she leads Sage, an integrative clinic (psychotherapy, psychiatry, bodywork, acupuncture, and functional nutrition) focused...
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PT 636 - Dr. Ros Watts – Building Communities and Connection
Psychedelics Today
Clinical psychologist joins to share insights from her decade of work with and her evolving focus on community-based integration. As the former Clinical Lead for , Dr. Watts witnessed how psychedelic experiences can foster profound feelings of — to self, others, and nature — yet also how that connection can fade without ongoing support. In this conversation, she reflects on what years of research have taught her about connectedness as both a healing mechanism and a human need. She explores how can transform fleeting psychedelic breakthroughs into lasting change, and why community is...
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PT 635 - Jennifer Espenscheid — Art as a Practice, Psychedelics as a Teacher
Psychedelics Today
Artist, builder, and podcast host Jennifer Espenscheid joins Joe Moore for a rich conversation on creativity, process, and the spiritual dimensions of making art. Drawing from her South Dakota roots and large-scale works like Luciferia, Jennifer reflects on the blend of grit, intuition, and trust that guides her artistic life. She discusses how psychedelics have served as a tool for clarity and healing rather than direct creation of art, helping her dissolve patterns and reconnect to innate creativity. They explore how events like Burning Man catalyze inspiration, why intention and...
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PT 634 - Brad Adams - LAMPS
Psychedelics Today
Brad Adams — LAMPS (Los Angeles Psychedelic Society) joins Kyle to trace his path from PhD researcher to community builder. Brad shares how early work in AIDS, Alzheimer’s, gerontology, and cancer research primed him to notice Harbor-UCLA’s psilocybin pilot for stage-4 cancer patients with death anxiety—where the strongest mystical experiences correlated with profound death acceptance. Teaming with Dennis McKenna, he ran an ayahuasca pilot in Peru and presented findings at Psychedelic Science 2017. From there, Brad founded LAMPS: first as research meetups at UCLA, then as a thriving...
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PT 633 - Dreamshadow - Life and Breath
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Kyle and Joe sit down with filmmaker Mustapha Khan and Dreamshadow’s Elizabeth & Lenny Gibson to explore Life and Breath—a new documentary immersing viewers in the experience and community of Holotropic Breathwork. We talk about why Mustapha was drawn to Dreamshadow, the film’s cinéma vérité approach that places you “in the room,” and how years of facilitation informed what became both an archival record and a living portrait of transformation. Elizabeth and Lenny reflect on 35+ years of holding space, the role of curiosity over agenda, and why genuine...
info_outlineIn this episode, Michael Sapiro joins Kyle Buller to explore truth, healing, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy through the lens of his new book, Truth Medicine. A clinical psychologist, ordained Zen Buddhist monk, retreat leader, and fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, he blends Buddhist psychology, trauma work, and consciousness studies. The discussion focuses on how people discover and live their truth, and why that truth becomes the core medicine in healing.
Early in the Podcast with Michael Sapiro
Michael describes how years of clinical work and retreat facilitation shaped his understanding of healing. Real transformation happens when people speak truths they have never allowed themselves to say out loud. These truths often relate to childhood experiences, identity, and how people learned to stay safe.
Key early themes include insight into:
• Truth as a physical and emotional “ring” in the body
• Personas formed in childhood to avoid rejection
• Depression and anxiety caused by living from those personas
The conversation explores how frightening it can be to challenge old roles and family narratives, yet how necessary it is for authentic healing.
Core Insights from Michael Sapiro
Michael outlines his model of preparation, psychedelic sessions, and integration, especially in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. Preparation often includes discovering what he calls the “heart of the hurt” and building trust for the internal process.
Core insights include:
• Tracing patterns back to their origins in early experience
• Using guided imagery, breathwork, and somatic awareness to practice surrender
• Understanding healing as applying love to wounded parts
• Understanding growth as becoming who you would be without old limits
Additional points:
• Medicine sessions create real practice in letting go
• Defenses should be engaged with, not fought
• Sensations in the body offer essential guidance
Later Discussion and Takeaways with Michael Sapiro
Michael compares one-on-one psychotherapy with retreat work. In group settings he holds space and supports safety, while in individual sessions he uses a blend of silence and active therapeutic guidance.
He also shares personal truth work, including embracing his own “bigness,” understanding ethics as part of spirituality, and learning to endure anxiety without falling into shame. Listeners gain practical guidance for nurturing wounded parts, developing the ability to endure challenging states, and allowing their strengths to emerge.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Michael Sapiro?
Michael Sapiro is a clinical psychologist, ordained Zen Buddhist monk, psychedelic psychotherapist, retreat leader, and research fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
What is the main idea of Truth Medicine by Michael Sapiro?
Truth Medicine teaches that discovering and living one’s personal truth is the core of healing, with psychedelics serving as a tool that helps reveal and embody that truth.
How does Michael Sapiro use ketamine in therapy?
He uses ketamine within a structured model involving preparation, supportive dosing sessions, and integration focused on compassion, endurance, and meaningful change.
Does he only work in group settings?
No. He leads retreats, but much of his work is individual psychedelic psychotherapy focused on trauma, personal truth, and growth.
What can clinicians learn from his approach?
Clinicians can learn how to balance guided intervention with open space, work directly with defenses, and support healing as both love and action.
Closing Thoughts
This conversation with Michael Sapiro offers a grounded, practical view of how truth, compassion, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy can support real change in the current psychedelic resurgence. By blending body awareness, ethical clarity, and personal growth, this episode provides useful guidance for therapists, guides, and seekers who want to bring more truth medicine into their lives and communities.