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His clinics also offer other premium therapies popular among wealthy clients, including the stellate ganglion block—an injection designed to calm the body’s fight-or-flight response. Business leaders like Bob Parsons have publicly praised the procedure for its reported success in treating PTSD.
“Celebrities tend to be more inclined to be on the hunt for highly effective solutions across beauty, health, mental health, nutrition, and so on,” Boyle said in a separate interview.
Ocasio-Cortez has been a long-time advocate for loosening restrictions on psychedelic substances for medical research. She first introduced legislation as a freshman to expand federal studies of drugs like psilocybin and MDMA.
“It’s well past time we take drug use out of criminal consideration and into medical consideration,” she said in 2019.
Her initial attempts to push these measures failed, including one proposal rejected by fellow Democrats. However, a similar bill eventually passed Congress and became law in 2023.
The congresswoman has also publicly discussed her own mental health struggles. She revealed she sought therapy following the January 6 Capitol riot, which she described as deeply traumatic.
“Oh yeah, I’m doing therapy,” she said during a 2021 appearance on Latino USA, recounting how she hid in a bathroom fearing for her life. “An extraordinarily traumatizing event.”
“I’ve had to take a beat,” she added, acknowledging the personal toll of her political career.
Ocasio-Cortez has also spoken about the burnout she experienced after her 2018 campaign, when she unseated longtime Rep. Joe Crowley.
“I went from doing yoga and making wild rice and salmon dinners to eating fast food for dinner and falling asleep in my jeans and makeup,” she wrote on Instagram at the time. “I neglected myself.”
The spending is now drawing criticism from ethics watchdogs who question whether campaign funds were used appropriately.
“While I can understand why AOC would spend $18,000 for a shrink whose specialties include narcissistic personality disorders, using her campaign contributions for what appears to be an expense for personal use violates federal campaign finance laws,” said Paul Kamenar, counsel for the National Legal and Policy Center.
“While she describes these expenses as ‘leadership training,’ Dr. Boyle has no expertise in that area, unlike several Democratic campaign consultants,” he added. “This looks like yet another example of misuse of campaign contributions.”
Ketamine therapies have gained popularity in recent years, but medical experts warn of serious risks.
“There’s a risk of people receiving infusions for ketamine without an appropriate diagnostic workup and considering other factors which may be responsible for their symptoms,” psychiatrist Dr. Simon Dosovitz told The Post. “It is a strongly dissociative drug.”
