Your Traitor Within: Healing the Parts That Learned to Survive with Dr. Eva Altobelli
In this episode of Your Traitor Within, Jessica Anne Pressler, LCSW sits down with Dr. Eva Altobelli, MD, addiction psychiatrist and founder of Home-LA, a holistic mental health center in Los Angeles that integrates psychiatry, psychotherapy, and ketamine-assisted therapy.
Dr. Altobelli shares how childhood experiences can shape the internal survival patterns we carry into adulthood — patterns that sometimes become what Jessica calls the “Traitor Within.” Together they explore how automatic reactions formed in childhood can quietly guide our behaviors, relationships, and sense of safety long after the original circumstances have passed.
Drawing from over two decades of work in addiction psychiatry, trauma recovery, and psychedelic-assisted therapy, Dr. Altobelli discusses the importance of relational healing — the idea that real transformation often happens through safe, collaborative connection between clinician and client.
The conversation moves between clinical insight and personal reflection as Dr. Altobelli shares her own story of growing up in a chaotic environment and how those early experiences shaped her tendency to over-function, constantly “doing” instead of allowing space for stillness and self-connection.
Jessica and Dr. Altobelli also discuss:
• how trauma can limit our ability to imagine new possibilities for ourselves
• why safety is the foundation for emotional healing
• the difference between doing and being in modern culture
• how ketamine-assisted psychotherapy can help people access insight and shift long-standing patterns
• why healing is often more effective when approached collaboratively rather than through rigid treatment models