TEMPLE, Texas — Dylan Beynon is the founder and CEO of Mindbloom, one of the largest providers of psychedelic therapy in the United States. His company is making ketamine therapy more affordable and available for about half of all Americans in 11 states, including Texas.
"MindBloom is a mental health and well-being brand helping people achieve life changing outcomes and breakthroughs, through guided at-home psychedelic therapy," he said.
"We are helping to radically increase access to ketamine therapy, by making it more approachable, through our friendly consumer brands, affordable, we've lowered the price by 80% from the average ketamine therapy provider and available through telemedicine," Beynon said.
This cause is one that's close to Beynon's heart for several reasons.
"One is, I grew up in a family that was just annihilated by mental illness. My mother today is one of the half a million homeless people in the US, she's severely mentally ill. Two, is that psychedelic medicines, including ketamine therapy, have been massively impactful for me in my growth and healing and transformation."
Mindbloom uses ketamine - the only legally available and prescribed psychedelic therapy - to help people experiencing anxiety and depression. Beynon said existing treatments for these mental health issues just aren't effective enough. But ketamine has been widely studied, is FDA-approved and is highly effective.
"Some of the benefits of ketamine therapy and other psychedelic therapies, is that it works immediately. They have a far lower side effect profile than SSRIs, oftentimes people actually feel great afterwards, do not have side effects, and three, these medicines can be used periodically as needed,” Beynon explained. “And what we're seeing today is that 80 to 90% of clients, which is literally unreal, are getting a clinically effective response, compared to like 30 to 35% for an average SSRI."
Clients fill out an extensive assessment online to see if they'd be a good fit. Care plans are overseen by licensed psychiatric clinicians who meet with clients online and prescribe ketamine, which is sent to them in the mail. Once it's time for a session, clients are paired with a guide - trained in psychedelic support - who supports them throughout the treatment.
"For the experience itself, it's undergoing this hour journey, a therapeutic journey with eyeshades, music and specialized meditations, to help people get the most out of the experience and explore what they're looking to explore, and then about 30 minutes to an hour afterwards of journaling and reflection."
So who is using Mindbloom? Beynon said the average client is 40 years old, has never tried psychedelic medicine before and has been suffering from mild to severe anxiety or depression for years.
"At this point, they're ready to try something new, and they're generally pretty stunned at the results and the experience."
The average cost of a session is between $150 and $200 dollars but Beynon said they're often able to get people reimbursed through health insurance providers for some of that cost.
"The approach from day one has been to radically increase access to treatment by making it more approachable, affordable and available to people, while giving them better clinical outcomes and experiences," he said.
If you’re interested in finding out whether ketamine therapy might be right for you, you can fill out a questionnaire for free on Mindbloom’s website.