Tania De Jong is an inspirational speaker, singer, business woman and social entrepreneur who has founded a number of successful businesses including Creative Universe, leading innovation conference Creative Innovation Global, Inspiring Minds leadership programs, MTA Entertainment and Events, Dimension5 co-working space and acclaimed singing group Pot-Pourri, started 3 charities in Creativity Australia, With One Voice, The Song Room and in relevance to today's episode Mind Medicine Australia. Tania performs, speaks and presents leadership workshops across the globe. As the title suggests, this episode is about the therapeutic potential for psychedelic medicines. I've wanted to talk about them for a long time now. I've been researching them for a number of years now and after finding Mind Medicine Australia, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to do so. Before we get into this conversation, I want to provide you with a bit more of an understanding of what conventional psychedelics are doing on a physiological basis. In clinical research settings across the globe, investigations are taking place for the use of psychedelic substances, particularly psilocybin, for treating illnesses such as addiction, depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Since the termination of research from the 1970, most psychedelic substances were classified as "drugs of abuse". And unfortunately, due to the government propaganda from this time, psychedelics were considered unsafe for human consumption and of no therapeutic use. Central to the revival is reestablishing it's set and setting, set being mindset, psychological expectations and intentions for using these substances, and setting being the physical environment, as well as the therapeutic clinician-patient relationship. Set and setting are crucial elements for facilitating paradigm shifting mental patterns and recognizing positive outcomes. The general public is certainly well-versed on the potential harms, and the dangers are absolutely real, however much of this is from cases involving patients who used illicit substances in uncontrolled, undesirable, unsupervised non-medical contexts. Currently, 1 in 5 Australian adults have a chronic mental illness. That's 4.8 million of us. 1 in 8 are on antidepressants and over 45% of Australians will experience mental illness in their lifetime. There has been no improvement in treatment in mental illness for decades. 50 years, in fact. This screams for innovation. The FDA has now granted psychedelic medicines as "breakthrough therapy designation" to fast-track the approval process. This is not just a preposterous idea, but a potentially quantum leap forward for mental illness. Links: *@mindmedicine.au* *mindmedicineaustralia.org*