MDMA, Ketamine, and Other Tools for Working With Trauma

Veronika Gold, LMFT, is the Co-founder of Polaris Insight Center, a clinic offering ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, integrative psychiatry, and integration services. She is a lead trainer at Polaris Training Program. She served as a sub-investigator and co-therapist, educator, and consultant at the Lykos clinical trials for the treatment of PTSD with MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. As a licensed marriage and family therapist, Veronika specializes in treating trauma, anxiety, stress, transition, self-esteem, employment, and relationship issues.

Too often, psychedelic-assisted therapy is reduced to a clinical buzzword or a quick-fix intervention, stripping it of the depth and relational care it requires. As more people seek healing through non-ordinary states, there’s growing confusion — and sometimes harm — caused by untrained providers and disjointed treatment models. What does it take to offer safe, ethical, and transformative psychedelic-assisted therapy?

With deep experience in trauma work and non-ordinary states, Veronika Gold emphasizes the importance of a strong therapeutic relationship, proper training, and personal experience with psychedelics. Ketamine treatment without therapeutic intervention can cause lasting damage, so Veronika advocates for relational, trauma-informed care that honors consent, somatic awareness, and integration over time. Rather than rushing to gain the patient’s insights during ketamine therapy sessions, therapists should remain cautious and curious, integrating somatic intervention techniques as needed.

In this week’s episode of Living Medicine, Dr. Sandy Newes hears from Veronika Gold, LMFT, the Co-founder of Polaris Insight Center, who talks about trauma-informed psychedelic therapy. Veronika shares her perspective on the role of non-ordinary states in healing, the distinction between MDMA and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, and how she uses therapeutic touch during psychedelic therapy sessions. 

This episode is brought to you by the Living Medicine Institute.

LMI is a training, resource, and membership program educating providers about the legal and safe use of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

To learn more or participate, visit https://livingmedicineinstitute.com.

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Living Medicine podcast, where we talk about ethical medical use of psychedelic psychotherapy, teaching skills, examining the issues and interviewing interesting people. Now let’s start today’s show.

Dr. Sandy Newes 0:18

Hi everyone. This is Dr. Sandy, Newes of the Living Medicine Institute. And I’m sure that you all are aware, but Living Medicine Institute is a pro. Is a business where we provide for med, clinical and medical providers, where we provide training, content and resources for providers who are interested in learning about psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, with a specific emphasis on ketamine. And I am delighted to have Veronika Gold here from the Polaris Insight Center. I’m really happy that she was willing to do this, and I’m super grateful. So thank you so much. For those of you who don’t know, which may or may not be very many of you, Veronika is one of the co founders of Polaris, which is really not the first ketamine assisted psychotherapy training program, but one of the earliest, and serves the tremendous amount of people I myself did the trainings when I was really early in the field, and learned a ton. And one of the things I really valued and appreciated about it was the specific focus on clinical interventions, theoretical application, and that just felt like it was really taking that to the next level. Veronika has also been really just influential in the field. She presents, she writes, and also was, really, was one of the MDMA therapists, so in the clinical trials. And how many years did you do that?

Veronika Gold 1:40

Yeah. So we’ve, I’ve been working in the meth MDMA assisted therapy trials, for you know, since 2016 since 2017 that’s 2016 we go to training so,

Dr. Sandy Newes 1:54

well, that’s a really long time. And so, you know, and we’ve all been through a lot of different waves of the psychedelic assisted psychotherapy field since then. And so, you know, today we’re going to just talk a little bit about, you know, Veronika. I’m going to ask you, kind of who you are in the field and how you got here, and then tell us a little bit about Polaris and then some of the kind of interventions that are utilized in ketamine assisted psychotherapy. And then maybe kind of a discussion of some of the MDMA comparison and and some of the associated things. Does that sound okay?

Veronika Gold 2:27

And grateful for your work and the support of the field and all the information you’re bringing to us. So thank you. Thanks.

Dr. Sandy Newes 2:36

So you know, the first question always is, just tell us a little bit about yourself. And you know, kind of, who are you in the world, and how did you come to be so central in the psychedelic field, like, what? Just tell us a little bit about your journey, about how you landed here.

Veronika Gold 2:54

Yes, so I’m a marriage and family therapist. I am licensed in California and Oregon, and I am originally from the Czech Republic, so I was a psychologist back there, and that kind of led to this direction in my life. So when I was just 16, I met Stanislav Grof, who was one of the co founders of transpersonal psychology at a transpersonal conference in prac, and got involved in Holotropic breath work, and had a lot of my own healing and my personal process with this healing and therapy, and that kind of led to my already deep interest in Human relationships and psychotherapy and becoming a psychologist. And when I came to the United States, I got my training here and was really interested in the treatment of trauma. And so a lot of the training that I’ve gotten over the years was focused on the on the treatment of trauma. So I have a lot of somatic modalities and transpersonal techniques of working with trauma. And so I work as a therapist at Polaris, as you mentioned, and as well, work as a supervisor and a trainer, and with the MDMA clinical trials that now are over, but I worked with Max and then Lycos as a therapist or therapist or therapist on the clinical trial, and then also as a supervisor, consultant and educator, trainer for the MDMA assisted psychotherapy. So working with non ordinary states of consciousness and seeing the potential for healing and transformation has been, you know, passion that kind of led me through, through my own healing and, and the work of psychotherapist that’s so interesting. So

Dr. Sandy Newes 4:50

this is going to be a little bit of a sidebar for a second, but just, you know, you mentioned non ordinary states and, and that’s something that I’m really interested in and talk a lot about. I don’t think it’s just medicine. I think that non ordinary states are found in a lot of domains like wilderness and meditation and breath work, and, you know, a really dance. And I’m just curious, you know, what your thoughts are about that?

Veronika Gold 5:13

Yeah, absolutely. So non ordinary states of consciousness, or expanded states of consciousness, Holotropic states, that comes from, you know, Holotropic breastwork, meaning moving towards wholeness, so that there are these states that give us, kind of a greater view, greater ability to connect to ourselves, to things around us, and kind of open this, this greater possibility for healing, understanding, inside, processing, releasing, and and those days have been, you know, the oldest technologies or ways of of healing for indigenous people All around the world, and, you know, for personal healing, for mental health, but physical healing, but for different community situations, for transitions and and so here we are Working with with these states in Western psychology and psychotherapy, which is very exciting, and I also think it’s a big responsibility. So it’s important that there is a lot of training and information and that we are kind of aiming in doing it in the most integral and ethical

Dr. Sandy Newes 6:40

way. I agree. I mean, I love that you said that, you know, we can essentially do harm, right? That’s, I mean, sometimes that’s just an understated kind of thing, excuse me, especially, I think in ketamine, where people can do it without a therapist, and they can do it in a different, you know, domain. And I think it’s really important that people are aware that you can do harm. And there is, there are things to learn, and it’s important. So, so, yeah, so tell us a little bit about hilarious. Actually, I want to also just say, like, I’m always kind of, like, you got to study with Stan Grof. Like, I read all, like, it’s like, all roads like, lead to Stan Grof, you know, like, I’ve read about him, and I like, I went to the the maps conference, and I just kind of, like, tried to stand near him, just like, and I know that sounds really funny, but just putting it out there for people, like, really, you know, I mean, he’s so much kind of the, you know, one of the originators of this, and highly recommend just reading about his work. And that must have been a really powerful experience

Veronika Gold 7:44

different different times of interacting with him. And, you know, he, he spent some time in the in Czech Republic, Czechoslovakia, after the after the revolution. But Biden, he already lived in the United States, and so I got to spend some time with him in Czech Republic where, you know, after 1989 he came back and was doing trainings and a lot of Holotropic Breathworks. And so I met him and his students who were also teaching there. And then, you know, many times met him here in when I moved to San Francisco and Mill Valley. And, you know, some people talk about this way that he, you know, that sometimes, like you just met Stan, and that changed the direction of your life. And I kind of feel that there was this, this inspiration. And then, you know, learn, learning about his work, reading his books, experiencing breath work and and then also studying with, with, with his students that you know, where some of the early therapists on the on the MDMA assisted therapy trial of Michael and any Mithoefer and, of course, Rick Dublin and so. So I feel very grateful and and, you know, so much, so much gratitude to stand absolutely Wow.

Dr. Sandy Newes 9:05

That’s Michael and Annie said the same thing. And so have several other people. So we just always want to, kind of like note right there it is again. So I certainly appreciate his influence. So how about, could you tell us a little bit about Polaris like, when did you, you know, when did you found it? Just tell us a little bit about the evolution what you all offer. And then I’m gonna probably kind of ask you some about just the general clinical process that you all teach

Veronika Gold 9:30

the co founders of Polaris through the math and DMA training. So we were kind of placed in the same Airbnb together. And, you know, right away, it’s kind of like you you meet the people you’ve been waiting for. And we just had so much alignment and passion and and, you know, long history in the treatment of trauma. And so we, we, you know, were trained, and we were starting to work on the study. And you. We’ve been also learning about ketamine work from our colleagues who been doing that work. And so I started working at an infusion clinic where I got a lot of lot of experience with ketamine, with the process that the patients were going through. And kind of from there, we co founded Polaris. So we spent a lot of time meeting, you know, about a six to eight months, just, you know, envisioning processing, kind of exploring the values and the way, how we wanted to bring the work forward. And then started a small clinic in San Francisco. And then, you know, everything grew organically. So there wasn’t originally a plan to have other therapists working there, or having a training program, but it all kind of evolved as we we started to do the work and so, so right now we have a we still have the clinic where we work. We have, you know, several wonderful therapists. We have two MFD associates who work with us and and then we have the training program that is a combination of in person and online training, training program where people take modules, and even the online everything is live. So we think that’s one of the kind of a, you know, I talk about, like, eight pillars of both becoming a psychedelic therapist and so that there is a lot of online learning that is an book learning that is important. But then also having kind of this, this, this Q and A possibility, and learning in person and and and then having experience experiential retreat. So we believe that it’s important to learn through self experience, and it’s this academy, but also doing personal work that really that is kind of the first pillar of being in in psychotherapy, knowing oneself and and then having experience with the ketamine, if you if you’re going to work with others. And so we do supervision also, and and, you know, just, just kind of like expanding the field. And so we, last year had two, two special trainings where one was together with Dr. Chris bench, and then the other one was kind of bringing medical providers, mental health providers and spiritual providers together. So there was chaplains, clergy, kind of coming in together, doing a training in ketamine assisted work.

Dr. Sandy Newes 12:40

Interesting. We are also beginning to do some work with clergy, and kind of moving in that direction. It’s a pretty interesting kind of world. When we start talking about some people being really concerned about, you know, being some kind of portal to allow in, you know, negative energies. And is that really in alignment with religious philosophy? And others are like, Oh my gosh, this is exactly it. I don’t know if that was your experience or not. It wasn’t

Veronika Gold 13:06

our experience in that training, but there was definitely conversations about that. And, you know, and I think there’s different ways how we can think about, you know, what that means, really, and what are the concerns, and what is kind of the remainder, or kind of the effect impact of the war on drugs and lot of the misinformation? And then also there is, as you said, there are negative experiences that people have because of unsafe set and setting, or from not having providers who are well trained. And then there is the material that emerges and and then there is this part. How do we create safe space that people can have these these experiences? So I think it’s almost good to question the psychological, physical and spiritual safety. Yeah,

Dr. Sandy Newes 14:12

yeah. I just think it’s very it’s very interesting just to kind of continue to have these conversations outside of the psychedelic field, because there’s a lot of, you know, there’s a lot of concerns, and people are bringing up a lot of things, and those who are in the field are like, you know, this can be amazing. Let’s do this really, really well. And I mean, that’s kind of an interesting sort of you know thing happening out there in the world. And I just think that’s something that people need to be aware of. And, you know, I might ask you about that again in a minute. But just like knowing that, like, if you’re, if you’re a proponent of this and you want to do it, well, there is a world in which people are talking about this, but not the whole world is sometimes like, yeah, I talk about psychedelics. Like, all day, every day. But then I lead this, I’m like, but others don’t like. I

Veronika Gold 15:04

just was in Arizona, and I talked to this man who was a, was working, actually as a counselor in this ministry, and he never heard of ketamine or ketamine therapy. So it was a, it was great to kind of come out and also see the excitement of the possibilities that are there. So, you know, education, information and training, it’s, it’s an it’s, you know, it’s how our training program started, because we were doing consultations with primary therapists of our clients. And so the clients who come to work with us, they have a primary therapist that you know, because we do see, even if you know you do multiple ketamine sessions, it’s still short term intervention. And so the psychotherapeutic process might be for a year or longer, and in that time, the person might do you know, for 610, ketamine sessions. And so there is always this close collaboration with the primary therapist, unless the ketamine provider is also the therapist. And that’s kind of how the program that we offer started, because we were offering these, these trainings and having these conversations with this therapist,

Dr. Sandy Newes 16:15

what people don’t know. Like, I mean, that’s, that’s just an interesting thing. Like, I mean, it’s, you know, for people like you obviously know this, but you know, there’s ketamine treatment, and then there’s cap ketamine assisted psychotherapy, and while they both have the medicine, they’re not they’re not the same. And you know, in the ketamine treatment world, they make pretty broad claims about mental health issues, but there are adverse events, like where content comes up, or people have a disturbing experience, and then they don’t have any place to land with it, which is exactly the power of the medicine. I’m just curious kind of, you know, what your thoughts are on that, and what message you’d like to communicate about that?

Veronika Gold 16:54

You know, I see so much as you’re saying advertisement and kind of claims that are being made. And people who are struggling, struggling, you know, like, find these hope for messages and it’s, it’s and that they don’t know all the difference what is available. And Dr. Raquel Bennett talks about these paradigms of treatment, which I think is really helpful way of of looking at this, that there is the medical paradigm, which is really looking at the neuro biochemical effects of ketamine, and so that’s kind of where a lot of studies are done. But I, you know, always kind of think about even like the question of the studies where they’re really looking at symptom reduction, and just when we think about the types of trauma or types of depression that that people might have, or the causes of it, and then the, you know, the symptoms are kind of measured just in maybe two weeks after, or, you know, in the end of the treatment. But when we are looking at ketamine assisted psychotherapy, it’s, of course, getting the benefit of this, you know, neuro biochemical effect of ketamine. But also we are looking for processing the underlying issues for actual shift and healing, and so that the results and the shift is long lasting. And the primary there is the relationship, the relational part, so that the ketamine is a catalyst of that relational process. So that there is a psychotherapy, there is a relationship between the client and the therapist, and then the ketamine comes, and there is the relationship with the ketamine that’s then supporting the treatment. And so it’s important that the therapist is trained, is present, and I think, has their own experiences with ketamine, so that they can guide and and provide psychotherapy so they are still engaged, engaged in the process with them. And and then, you know, there is a transpersonal paradigm where the focus or the see the trans person experience, the second leg experience is seen as crucial for the healing process, and again, in that you can have the psychotherapy and the neurobim effect of ketamine. So it’s kind of a combination of them. But I think what you’re what you’re sharing, or what you were asking about, is that, you know, there are places where you can get an ketamine infusion, or you have mail in lozenges, but there is no support. There is no therapist, or there is maybe a sitter who is not really involved in that relationship and is not providing psychotherapy. So it’s like a ketamine experience with support. It’s

Dr. Sandy Newes 19:55

interesting. I mean, one of the things I think is interesting is that, I mean, we don’t get more adverse events. Is reported under those conditions, which I think speaks to the safety of the medicine. But it’s also kind of a shame that people don’t really realize, like, you know, that there can be so much more. And I think one of the things I wanted to ask you is you, you’ve mentioned the relationship, and I remember that from early on, like when I did the training, which was a long time ago now about yay, we get to talk about the relationship, because I was trained in that way as well. But there’s still a prevailing view that it’s not that relational of intervention, like we’re going to do, like higher dose, and we’re going to sit there quietly and then we might process afterwards. But it sounds like you really advocate for the opposite of that, which I certainly do, and we do at Living Medicine Institute. So I’m just wondering if you can talk about the importance of those relational pieces, just like you know, the being with the client and working with attachment and relational aspects, especially as they relate to trauma. The

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