Therapy
PT372 – The Heroic Hearts Project: Veterans and The Impact of Storytelling
November 11, 2022
Featuring: Jesse Gould & Zach Riggle
In this Veteran’s Day episode, Joe checks in with two members of the Heroic Hearts Project: Founder and President, Jesse Gould, and Chief of Operations, Zach Riggle.
In this Veteran’s Day episode, Joe checks in with two members of the Heroic Hearts Project: Founder and President, Jesse Gould, and Chief of Operations, Zach Riggle.
Heroic Hearts’ mission is to create a healing community that helps veterans suffering from military trauma recover and thrive through helping them gain access to psychedelic treatments, professional coaching, and ongoing peer support – and we’re always happy to have them on the podcast to remind listeners about the extremely important work they do.
Among other projects, they are currently running several studies: psilocybin for gold star wives (spouses of fallen soldiers), ayahuasca for combat veterans, and ibogaine for special operations veterans through the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School’s Center for Psychedelic Research & Therapy; a study with the University of Georgia on personality change through psychedelics; a gut microbiome study with University of Colorado Boulder; and a psilocybin for head trauma study through Imperial College London. And today, they released the short film, “It’s Time – A Documentary of Veterans and Pro Athletes Seeking Healing Through Psychedelics.”
Gould and Riggle discuss the growth in interest and acceptance in psychedelics they’ve seen over the last few years; the importance of people telling their stories; relative trauma and how people too often wait to seek help; how trauma isn’t always due to a single event; Colorado’s Proposition 122 (which passed!); the need to have standard measurements in psychedelic studies; and how people who go through trauma together can heal together.
Notable Quotes
“At what point do we ask for help? I think, just as a society, we feel like things have to be in full-on crisis before we need to seek some sort of assistance. And we want to put [it] out there that that doesn’t have to be the case – that if you’re able to look at your life and realize that there may be some areas where things could improve and you might need some help in improving them, then don’t be afraid to reach out, because we’re not going to turn you away.” -Zach
“In the standard medical world, the physicians [or] the psychologists are looking at that qualifying incident and trying to heal that, trying to address that. And there’s some things that are pretty effective …but they’re working largely on that single incident, and ignoring all the other things that may have happened over time. And that’s where psychedelics can be so beneficial, is that they address that whole issue with a full system reset.” -Zach
“You take a population that largely (due to their illness) has been isolating, pushing everyone away, and just sitting back and looking at how amazing everyone else’s life is while theirs continues to deteriorate. Well, we plug them back into a community, bring them in, and help them to heal together. That’s a powerful thing to realize: that communities that were traumatized together; they heal better together.” -Zach
Links
Heroic Hearts Project – Canada
Psychedelics Today: PTSF77 – Progress and Context, with Jesse Gould of the Heroic Hearts Project
Jesse Gould and Keith Abraham – Heroic Hearts Project: Connecting Veterans to Psychedelic Treatment
Menshealth.com: This Veteran Is Helping Other Soldiers Restore Their Mental Health
University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School: Center for Psychedelic Research & Therapy
Psychedelichealth.co.uk: Heroic Hearts to research psilocybin treatment for brain injury in veterans
Justice.gov: uBiome Co-Founders Charged With Federal Securities, Health Care Fraud Conspiracies
Psychedelics Today: PT223 – Daniel Carcillo – Life After Sports
Marijuanamoment.net: Colorado Voters Approve Psychedelics Legalization Ballot Initiative
