featured image
Training

PT441 – The American Psychedelic Practitioners Association and the Mission to Integrate Psychedelics into U.S. Healthcare

September 12, 2023
Featuring: General Stephen Xenakis

In this episode, Kyle interviews General Stephen Xenakis, MD: an adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist who retired from the U.S. Army in 1998 at the rank of Brigadier General and began a career starting up medical technology companies and clinical practice to support human rights and new methodologies of healthcare. 

featured image
Subscribe Share

In this episode, Kyle interviews General Stephen Xenakis, MD: an adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist who retired from the U.S. Army in 1998 at the rank of Brigadier General and began a career starting up medical technology companies and clinical practice to support human rights and new methodologies of healthcare. 

In June, he became the new Executive Director of the American Psychedelic Practitioners Association (APPA), whose mission is to bring practitioners together as a community; develop the best training programs and practices; shift to a more patient-centered, integrated model of care; eventually accredit practitioners to practice with legal substances; and overall, help to make these new modalities more mainstream. 

He discusses their path to success, which began with their publishing of the first professional practice guidelines for psychedelic-assisted therapy practitioners, and will continue on with ethical guidelines and clinical practice guidelines in the future. And he talks about the idea of a safety net for people who have adverse effects from psychedelic journeys; what clinicians need to know about psychedelics; concerns over accessibility; and the importance of identifying the correct treatments for the correct patients, as each person’s path to healing will likely be drastically different.

Notable Quotes

“We live in a world of disease-centered treatments, and we want to shift to a patient-centered model. We want to know that we’re not just treating your symptoms, we’re not just treating the problems that you have; that what you’re getting out of this is, in fact, helping you live the life that you want to live. What do those outcomes look like? How do we know [what] they are? How do we collaborate with you? It’s a partnership, it’s a rapport. It’s an alliance between you and me so that you’re getting what you feel is most important and we’re doing our job in providing it. That’s a big shift in medicine.”

Links

Appa-us.org

Appa-us.org: Professional Practice Guidelines for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Practitioners

Globenewswire.com: American Psychedelic Practitioners Association Announces Appointment of Brigadier General (Ret.) Stephen N. Xenakis, MD as new Executive Director

Globenewswire.com: American Psychedelic Practitioners Association and BrainFutures Publish First Professional Practice Guidelines for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

Globenewswire.com: American Psychedelic Practitioners Association Retains The Daschle Group as Government Affairs Counsel

Brilliant Blends (Use code PT10 for 10% off)

General Stephen Xenakis

In this Episode

General Stephen Xenakis

Stephen N. Xenakis, MD is an adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist with many years of clinical, academic, and management experience. He retired from the U.S. Army in 1998 at the rank of Brigadier General and began an active career starting up medical technology companies and clinical practice. Dr. Xenakis has advised the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other senior Department of Defense officials on psychological health and the effects of blast concussion. He is actively engaged with Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights First, and is the only retired military general and physician to speak out publicly against torture and the involvement of health care practitioners in torture. Dr. Xenakis’s clinical and research practice is focused on leveraging technology to improve health care services and sustain military readiness. He serves on the Executive board of the Center for Ethics and Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, the editorial board of the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, and is an adjunct professor at the Uniformed Services of Health Sciences of the military medical department. Dr. Xenakis has conducted research and published in the areas of psychotherapy, child and adolescent psychiatry, post-traumatic stress disorder, telepsychiatry and innovative technology, military/veterans health care, and ethics and human rights. He appears in the national media, both print and television, and has been featured in the New York Times for his extensive involvement with detainees in Guantánamo. Dr. Xenakis is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

He is now the Executive Director of the American Psychedelic Practitioners Association (APPA).

 

Load more podcasts