Andrew Penn, RN, MS, NP, CNS, APRN-BC, on Psychedelics That Mental Health Professionals Should Know

Andrew Penn, RN, MS, NP, CNS, APRN-BC, founding member of the Organization of Psychedelic and Entheogenic Nurses (OPENurses) and a Sana Symposium steering committee member, discusses psychedelics that mental health professionals should be familiar with, including ketamine, MDMA and psilocybin-assisted therapy for major depression, and when mental health professionals should expect to have the latter two available to implement into treatment plans.

Read the Transcript:

Doug Edwards:  Hello, I'm Doug Edwards, director of the Psychiatry and Behavioral Health Learning Network. Today, I'm joined by Andrew Penn, an associate clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing.

Mr. Penn is a co-investigator on the Usona sponsored psilocybin facilitated therapy for major depression study. A founding member of Open Nurses and is on the steering committee of the Sana Symposium. Welcome, Mr. Penn. I'm delighted you could join us today.

Dr Andrew Penn:  Thanks, Doug.

Ewards:  My main question for you today is, what are the key categories of psychedelics that mental health professionals should become familiar with?

Dr Penn:  Really, there's three that are in later-stage development. Actually, the one is already on the market, and that's ketamine.

Ketamine, most of us are familiar with as anesthetic and a rapidly acting antidepressant drug. This is being used in a psychedelic paradigm in something known as ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. Ketamine is already available and is being used by various practitioners around the country.

The other two that are in later-stage development would be MDMA, which would be indicated upon completion of phase III trials which are currently underway for treatment, in conjunction with psychotherapy for PTSD. That is in middle, late-stage phase III, and in phase II is psilocybin-assisted or facilitated therapy for major depression.

Edwards:  You mentioned we have ketamine available now for major depression. What's the timeline you think for MDMA and psilocybin being available to mental health professionals? Is it a few years down the road?

Dr Penn:  Yeah, it's probably within the next five years. If not, sooner. There's a lot of moving parts in a trial. Certainly, COVID has slowed some of the trials down, but they're starting to pick back up again.

The MDMA study is over halfway through. It's now moved into the second phase. There are two companies working on developing psilocybin for major depression. They're a little further behind, so that's probably three or four years down the road, but these are difficult things to predict.

Edwards:  It's certainly a moving target and the time of COVID as well as research does take time, especially compounds like psychedelics. Andrew, can you tell us a little bit about Open Nurses and the goal of this new organization?

Dr Penn:  Yeah. As you mentioned in my intro, I'm a nurse by training. I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I founded Open Nurses with three colleagues from the California Institute of Integral Studies, Psychedelic Therapy and Research Training Program that I went through a number of years ago.

We found the Open Nurses for a number of reasons, but primarily because we believe that nurses have a lot to contribute to not only psychedelic research but the delivery of psychedelic therapies. We found that there were a number of nurses who were interested in this particular topic but hadn't quite found each other yet.

As we began to talk to other nurses around the country and around the world, we found that there were a lot of people who were interested in this who were trained as nurses or allies of nurses. That's why we founded this organization.

Edwards: If people want to learn more about Open Nurses, where should they go?

Dr Penn: I would encourage them to come to our website which is openurses.org. It's O-P-E-N-U-R-S-E-S.org. There's only one N in the phrase. Openurses.org is a great place for them to go. We do have a private Facebook page, which people can apply to join, which also allows them to have more conversation between other people who are like-minded.

Edwards:  Thank you, Mr. Penn. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you can join Mr. Penn and myself to learn more about the latest in psychedelic research and treatment strategies for mental health and addiction professionals at the inaugural Sana symposium, which is a virtual event taking place this September from the same team that brings you Psych Congress, the evolution of psychotherapy and the national conferences on addiction disorders. Be sure to visit sanasymposium.com to learn more and to register.