Trip of Compassion: A window into psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy

Don’t miss out - our first screening in September sold out within a few days of being announced. Get your ticket early if you missed out!

By popular demand, Mind Medicine Australia is thrilled to welcome you to our second screening of Trip of Compassion, an acclaimed Israeli documentary on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Trip of Compassion follows a number of patients participating in clinical trials in Israel, and is the first feature documentary to show footage from within psychedelic-assisted therapy sessions. 

“I felt like I went through 15 years of psychological therapy in one night.” 
–  Patient featured in Trip of Compassion

Following the screening there will be a Q & A panel with Peter Hunt AM, Tania de Jong AM, Professor David Castle & Sean O'Carroll. This will be an opportunity to engage in a discussion about psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies for mental illness broadly, and what Mind Medicine Australia and other local organisations are doing here in Australia.

"Trip of Compassion is the most compelling movie I've seen in the last  year!" 
– Tim Ferris, acclaimed author and podcaster 

Director: Gil Karni, 
Producers: Zafrir Kochanovsky & Miri Ezra - ttv Productions
Distributors: GO2FILMS

More about medicinal MDMA

Psychedelic-assisted treatments offer enormous potential in providing a meaningful alternative to current treatments for mental illness. PTSD is a debilitating condition that affects tens of millions of people worldwide, with many more trauma victims diagnosed with comorbid conditions such as depression, anxiety and eating disorders. In recent clinical trials, MDMA has been shown to produce reliable clinical improvements, restoring patient safety and self-agency even for individuals who have suffered with PTSD for many years, and for whom many treatments have failed.    

Results from Phase 2 clinical trials over the past decade have been so compelling that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States recently designated MDMA-assisted psychotherapy as a ‘Breakthrough Therapy’. This designation highlights the FDA’s anticipation that these therapies may offer substantial advantage over current treatments. If forthcoming Phase 3 results confirm these treatments are effective, MDMA-assisted treatment of PTSD may become a prescription medicine as early as 2021 in some jurisdictions.

The wave of clinical psychedelic research and regulatory support is rapidly building, with experts forecasting the availability of psychedelic-assisted treatments in the US and EU within the next 2 to 5 years, subject to positive clinical outcomes in large trials that are currently underway. 

More about the panel

Peter Hunt AM 
B.Com, LL.B 
Founder & Chair of Mind Medicine Australia 
As an investment banker Peter Hunt AM advised local and multi-national companies and governments in Australia for nearly 35 years. He co-founded and was Executive Chairman of one of Australia’s leading investment banking advisory firms, Caliburn Partnership (now called Greenhill Australia) and continued as Chairman of the Firm after its sale to Greenhill Inc in 2009. Peter is an active philanthropist involved in funding, developing and scaling social sector organisations which seek to create a better and fairer world. Peter was made a member of the General Division of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2010 for services to the philanthropic sector.

Tania de Jong AM 
LL.B (Hons), GradDipMus 
Founder & Deputy Chair of Mind Medicine Australia  
Tania de Jong AM is a trail-blazing Australian soprano, award-winning social entrepreneur, creative innovation catalyst, spiritual journey woman, storyteller and global speaker. Tania is one of Australia’s most successful female entrepreneurs and innovators developing 5 businesses and 3 charities over the past 3 decades. She is Founder and Executive Producer of future-shaping events series, Creative Innovation Global. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in June 2008 and named one of the 100 Women of Influence and the 100 Australian Most Influential Entrepreneurs in 2018. 

Professor David Castle  
David Castle is Chair of Psychiatry at St Vincent’s Health and The University of Melbourne. He has wide clinical and research interests, encompassing schizophrenia and related disorders, bipolar disorder, OCD spectrum disorders and disorders of body image.

He has a longstanding interest in the impact of licit and illicit substances on the brain and body and is actively engaged in programmes addressing the physical health of the mentally ill and the mental health of the physically ill. He has published widely in the scientific literature and is a frequent speaker at scientific meetings. His broader interests include music, literature, theatre and art.

Sean O'Carroll
Sean O’Carroll is a psychotherapist in private practice in Melbourne, Australia. He has a background in philosophy, transpersonal psychology, and a number of psychotherapeutic modalities including relational gestalt therapy and creative arts therapy. He has been teaching and training psychotherapists since 2011, and is the director of Wild Mind. His MA research thesis (2014 – 2017) involved a phenomenological exploration into the experience of being alone with nature, and in 2018 he developed and delivered Australia’s first tertiary level course in eco-psychotherapy to training therapists.

Sean’s work under the banner of Wild Mind employs non-ordinary states of consciousness to support health and wholeness. This work is grounded in various state-change technologies including dance/movement, nature-based practices and a variety of other psychotherapeutic processes. Sean does not facilitate psychedelic journeys for legal reasons, but works closely with members of the Melbourne medicine community in a psychotherapeutic capacity, supporting the exploration and integration of psychedelic experiences.


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