Jonathan Sabbagh - Collaborative Care: Building a Psychedelic-Assisted Mental Health System

In this Psychedelic Podcast episode, Paul F. Austin welcomes Jonathan Sabbagh, CEO of Journey Clinical, who shares his mission to integrate FDA-approved psychedelics within the modern therapeutic framework.

Find episode links, summary, and transcript here: https://thethirdwave.co/podcast/episode-209-jonathan-sabbagh/

Jonathan highlights the disjointed nature of today’s mental health system, where therapists and prescribers lack communication, hindering comprehensive assessments and referrals. He and Paul emphasize Journey Clinical’s collaborative care model, streamlining information exchange, and maximizing psychedelic-therapy access through telemedicine innovation. They explore Journey’s potential challenges of scalability, therapist training, and insurance coverage for extended sessions. And they consider the balance between state-level decriminalization, psychedelic medicalization, and decentralized access.

Join Paul and Jonathan as they imagine a new mental healthcare infrastructure that addresses the growing crisis and reinvents therapeutic care as we know it.

 

Jonathan Sabbagh:

Jonathan Sabbagh is the Co-Founder and CEO of Journey Clinical, the leading telehealth platform expanding access to psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. A serial entrepreneur, Jonathan built his career in finance, spending over two decades working for hedge funds and building businesses in Switzerland and NYC.

After receiving a difficult diagnosis of PTSD and extreme burnout, Jonathan left the world of finance to focus on his mental health. During that time, he personally experienced the transformative benefits of plant medicine and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP). Jonathan’s healing journey inspired him to begin formal clinical psychology training at the New School, with the vision of expanding access to transformative psychedelic-assisted therapies to the millions of Americans with depression and anxiety.

Jonathan’s personal and professional journey motivated him to found Journey Clinical in 2020, the #1 platform in the US that enables licensed mental health professionals to deliver KAP at scale.

Highlights:

• How Jonathan’s mental health & finance background led him to start Journey Clinical.
• Jonathan’s take on co-founding and running Journey Clinical with his wife.
• The origin story of Journey Clinical and its startup challenges.
• Exploring Journey’s collaborative care model.
• Investigating Journey’s infrastructure solution for psychedelic-assisted therapy.
• Journey’s vetting requirements for network therapists.
• How the Ryan Haight Act might affect ketamine telehealth access.
• Journey’s decentralized approach to safe and responsible ketamine telemedicine.
• Integrating FDA-approved psychedelics into the mainstream mental health infrastructure.
• Jonathan’s long-term vision for collaborative mental health care through Journey Clinical.

Key Links:

• Journey Clinical: https://www.journeyclinical.com/
• Journey Clinical on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/journeyclinical
• Jonathan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sabbaghjonathan?lang=en

Episode Sponsors:

• Psyched Wellness - use code THIRDWAVE23 to get 15% off.
• Apollo Neuro - Third Wave listeners get 15% off.