Therapy, Treating Trauma & Other Life Challenges | Dr. Paul Conti

**Andrew Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, my guest is Dr. Paul Conti. Dr. Conti is a psychiatrist who did his training at Stanford School of Medicine, and then went on to be chief resident at Harvard Medical School. He now runs the Pacific Premiere Group, which is a collection of psychiatrists and therapists focusing on solving complex human problems, including trauma, addiction, personality, and psychiatric disorders. Today, we discuss trauma in detail and the therapeutic process in detail. For instance, we discuss what is trauma? How do you know if you have trauma? Dr. Conti shares with us, for instance, that not every experience that we think is traumatic is necessarily traumatic, and yet many people might have trauma without even realizing it. We also talk about the therapeutic process generally. For instance, how to pick a therapist, how to best approach and go through therapy, and how to evaluate whether or not therapy and your relationship to the therapist is working or not. We also talk about self-therapeutics because we acknowledge that not everyone has access to or can afford therapy. And we talk about drug therapies. For instance, antidepressants, antipsychotics. We talk about alcohol, cannabis, ketamine, and the psychedelics, including psilocybin, LSD. And we talk about the clinical use of MDMA and what the future of that looks like. The reason for bringing Dr. Conti onto this podcast is because I see him as the person who has the greatest and most holistic view of therapy, trauma, drug therapies, talk therapies, and how self-therapy and work with others can be integrated for both healing and growing from difficult circumstances. Dr. Conti is also the author of an exceptional book entitled Trauma, The Invisible Epidemic, How Trauma Works and How We Can Heal From It. That book describes trauma and its many features and many tools, some of which we discuss on the podcast today. So whether or not you have trauma or not, by the end of today's episode, you will have a much deeper understanding about what trauma is. In fact, I'm confident that you will gain insight into whether or not you have trauma or not, whether or not people close to you have trauma or not, and the various paths to recovering and indeed growing from trauma that we can all take. As you will soon learn, Dr. Conti is an exceptional communicator and has a unique window into the trauma and therapeutic process that I know that all of us can benefit from. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is an all in one vitamin mineral probiotic drink. I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or twice a day is that it helps me cover all of my basic nutritional needs. It makes up for any deficiencies that I might have. In addition, it has probiotics, which are vital for microbiome health. I've done a couple of episodes now on the so-called gut microbiome and the ways in which the microbiome interacts with your immune system, with your brain to regulate mood, and essentially with every biological system relevant to health throughout your brain and body. With Athletic Greens, I get the vitamins I need, the minerals I need, and the probiotics to support my microbiome. If you'd like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman and claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs plus a year supply of vitamin D3K2. There are a ton of data now showing that vitamin D3 is essential for various aspects of our brain and body health. Even if we're getting a lot of sunshine, many of us are still deficient in vitamin D3. And K2 is also important because it regulates things like cardiovascular function, calcium in the body and so on. Again go to athleticgreens.com/huberman to claim the special offer of the five free travel packs and the year supply of vitamin D3K2. Today's episode is also brought to us by Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the exact ratios of electrolytes are an element and those are sodium, magnesium and potassium, but it has no sugar. I've talked many times before on this podcast about the key role of hydration and electrolytes for nerve cell function, neuron function, as well as the function of all the cells and all the tissues and organ systems of the body. If we have sodium, magnesium and potassium present in the proper ratios, all of those cells function properly and all our bodily systems can be optimized. If the electrolytes are not present and if hydration is low, we simply can't think as well as we would otherwise. Our mood is off, hormone systems go off, our ability to get into physical action, to engage in endurance and strength and all sorts of other things is diminished. So with Element, you can make sure that you're staying on top of your hydration and that you're getting the proper ratios of electrolytes. If you'd like to try Element, you can go to drinkelement, that's lmnt.com/huberman, and you'll get a free Element sample pack with your purchase. They're all delicious. So again, if you want to try Element, you can go to elementlmnt.com/huberman.