Speakers and Facilitators

An archive of practitioners who have offered their skills and knowledge in support of deepening our collective inquiry into the healing potential of expanded states through lectures and workshops.

Speakers and Facilitators

An archive of practitioners who have offered their skills and knowledge in support of deepening our collective inquiry into the healing potential of expanded states through lectures and workshops.

Adele Lafrance & Jennifer Danby

“A Brief Overview of Psychedelic Assisted Therapy for Individuals and Their Families Living with an Eating Disorder”

Jen and Adele will give an overview of highlights relating to the use of psychedelic assisted therapy with those struggling with an eating disorder. They will draw primarily on their theoretical knowledge and practical experience from research and clinical settings with psilocybin, ayahuasca, ketamine and MDMA. They will also discuss the role of supportive others (family member or close friend) in the process, in line with advances in the field of ED treatment.

 

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Dr. Adele Lafrance is a clinical psychologist, research scientist, author and developer of emotion-focused treatment modalities. She is active in the research and practice of psychedelic medicine, with a focus on ayahuasca, MDMA, psilocybin and ketamine. Adele was the Strategy Lead for the MAPS-sponsored study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for eating disorders and a clinical trainer and supervisor for Imperial College Center for Psychedelic Research. She has a particular interest in mechanisms and models of healing, including emotion processing, spirituality, love, and family-based psychedelic medicine.

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Jennifer Danby is a Systemic Psychotherapist, Clinical Lead and Trainer specialising in eating disorders based in London, UK. Jennifer was the lead therapist on the Panorexia Trial at Imperial College London, a psychedelic-assisted therapy study for female adults with Anorexia Nervosa. As part of her role on the trial she worked closely with the participants support network. Her clinical work in both areas is strongly influenced by Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) in which she is a certified supervisor and trainer as well as a founding board member for the International Institute for Emotion-Focused Family Therapy.

Maria Papaspyrou

Tim Read & Maria Papaspyrou

“Being and Becoming: The Making of a Psychedelic Therapist”

Tim and Maria will share reflections on how we are ‘made’ as psychedelic therapists, what it requires and asks of us. They will unpack some of the complexities of the work as the psychedelic renaissance has unfolded and will share reflections from the closing of the first cohort of the two year training. It will also be a chance to open a wider discussion as a community.

This IPT keynote was open to IPT members only and free of charge.  It was not recorded. 

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Maria Papaspyrou is a psychotherapist in private practice also trained in family constellations and Dr Tim Read is a psychiatrist also trained in holotropic breathwork. They co-founded IPT after co-editing the book Psychedelics and Psychotherapy, published in 2021. Tim is also author of Walking Shadows: Archetype and Psyche in Crisis and Growth and co-editor with Jules Evans of Breaking Open: Finding a Way Through Spiritual Emergency. Maria has co-edited Psychedelic Mysteries of the Feminine with Chiara Baldini and David Luke. Maria and Tim both provide therapy supervision internationally in clinical trials and organisations that support the introduction of expanded states in service of healing and growth and support the growing community of professionals in the UK under their work at IPT.

 

Anne Wagner

“Couples Therapy with MDMA- From PTSD to Relationship Enhancement”

One of MDMA’s earliest therapeutic uses was in couples therapy. In the 1970s and 1980s, therapists used MDMA in their work with couples to address couples-level concerns. Since MDMA became illegal to use in practice in the majority of the world, we have only recently been able to start investigating this combination of psychotherapy and medicine again, and so far, it has been in the context in PTSD. We will discuss the findings from our first pilot trial of Cognitive Behavioral Conjoint Therapy for PTSD and MDMA, and our current ongoing randomized trial. Within this second trial, we also have the opportunity to test a model of couples therapy in the crossover condition that focuses on relational, as opposed to trauma-focused, outcomes. This model for working with MDMA and couples will be described.

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Dr. Anne Wagner, C.Psych., is a clinical psychologist, writer and treatment development researcher living in Toronto, Canada. Anne is the founder of Remedy, a mental health innovation community, and Remedy Institute, Remedy’s home for research. She is the lead investigator of the pilot trial of Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for PTSD + MDMA and the randomized trial of Cognitive Behavioral Conjoint Therapy for PTSD (CBCT) + MDMA, a couples therapy for PTSD. Anne is deeply committed to bridging the worlds of psychotherapy and non-ordinary states of consciousness, and has a passion for its use for relational healing. She is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology and an Associate Member of the Yeates School of Graduate Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University. She is the Past-Chair of the Traumatic Stress Section of the Canadian Psychological Association, is a Global Ambassador for the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies, and is a former board member of Casey House, Toronto’s hospital for those living with and at impacted by HIV/AIDS.

 

Friederike Meckel

“Let’s Talk About Setting”

In this lecture Friederike will firstly present a few different settings that she has have come to know herself. She will then contrast and highlight the different components and criteria of these settings. Lastly, Friederike will discuss and raise questions about the various settings. There will be an inquiry into the audiences thoughts  on the various descriptions discussed – an invitation for critiques, likes and feedback about the audiences ideas about  optimal setting.

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Friederike Meckel trained as a medical doctor and a medical psychotherapist in Germany. From 1989-1991 she trained as a Holotropic Breathwork©facilitator with Prof. Stanislav Grof in the US. From 1992-1995 she trained to be a psycholytic therapist. She also underwent training as a couple’s therapist, a family therapist and a family-constellation-worker. After receiving her license for psychotherapy in 1997, she worked in her own private (psychotherapeutic) practice providing conventional psychotherapy, Holotropic Breathwork©-groups and systemic-family-constellation work. For nearly ten years she offered substance-supported therapy, working underground. After her being betrayed in 2009 she gave talks about her work at conferences, like “Breaking Convention” and “Beyond Psychedelics”. Being retired now she still offers some private psychological counselling in Zürich. Her book „Therapy with Substance “* was published in 2015. She is an advocate of substance supported therapy and is engaged in sharing her knowledge and experience with others and to learning and exchanging from other people in this growing field.

*https://www.aeonbooks.co.uk/

Graham Campbell & Michelle Baker Jones

“Psychedelic Therapy with DMT”

Graham and Michelle will share their experience of working with DMT-assisted psychotherapy as a potential treatment for depression. They will describe the Phase I and IIa trials and share some of the experiences of healthy volunteers and patients in the trials. They hope to provide an insight into the participant journey through the trials and the broad nature of their psychedelic experiences. They will present the main findings from both trials whilst offering reflection on their experience of working with DMT as a potential therapeutic tool.

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Michelle Baker Jones is an integrative psychotherapeutic counsellor based in London, where she has a private practice. She has been a member of Imperial College’s Psychedelic Research Group since 2015. Michelle was a lead guide on Imperial College’s randomised controlled trial (Psilodep 2) comparing psilocybin to escitalopram in the treatment of depression.

She has recently been working as a lead therapist for Small Pharma’s clinical trials with DMT-assisted therapy for depression. This was originally a collaboration between Small Pharma and Imperial College London. She co-designed the Beckley Academy Foundations to Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy training course. Michelle has contributed to the development of a therapist training programme for the DMT trials, having co-produced a psychedelic therapy framework for working with DMT.

Michelle offers individual psychedelic integration for people who are struggling to process psychedelic experiences. She co-facilitates the psychedelic integration specialist interest group for The Institute of Psychedelic Therapy, drawing on her experience of facilitating integration groups over the past five years.

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Graham Campbell has worked in NHS mental health services for 15 years; eight of those years as a consultant psychiatrist in a psychiatric hospital in Brighton & Hove. He has an MSc in Neuroscience from Kings College London and trained with the Imperial College Psychedelic Research Group to work as an assistant guide on the psilocybin vs escitalopram depression trial (Psilodep 2).

He has helped organise and facilitate psychedelic integration groups in Brighton since 2019 and has worked as an associate editor for a special edition of Frontiers in Psychiatry on the potential clinical application of psychedelics. He is a member of the Advisory Council with The Institute of Psychedelic Therapy and co-chairs Academic Circle groups for IPT members/affiliates.

In 2020, he left the NHS to work full-time as a trial psychiatrist and psychedelic guide for Small Pharma’s DMT-assisted psychotherapy trials for depression. Phase I and Phase IIa trials have now been completed. Graham has contributed to the development of a therapist training programme for the DMT trials, having co-produced a psychedelic therapy framework for working with DMT.

He also works as an advisor and writer for Lumenate; a company that turns your phone into a strobe light for inducing altered states of consciousness. He is a mentor for the MIND Foundation augmented psychotherapy training programme and works in private psychiatry practice in Brighton.

 

Nadav Liam Modlin & Carolina Maggio

“From Cure to Care: The Realities and Fantasies of Psychedelic Therapy”

“Care is about what two people can do for each other if they don’t provide remedies” Adam Philips

Renewed medical interest in psychedelic therapy as a potential treatment for so-called ‘treatment resistant’ mental health conditions presents a unique opportunity to examine the biopsychosocial frameworks informing how mental-health care systems, clinicians and patients think about psychological healing, change or recovery. The associated conscious and unconscious dispositions and assumptions held by both clinicians and patients guide attitudes towards psychopathology, the provision of care and indeed, the patients’ perception of the effectiveness of the treatment.

Drawing from psychoanalytic and trauma-informed models of treatment, this lecture explores the idea of Cure in psychedelic therapy not only as a destination marked by the reduction of symptoms but rather as the patients’ newfound ability to Care for their internal world and lived-experience. Correspondingly, this lecture will explore the therapist experience of delivering psychedelic therapy in research settings, discussing the unique challenges and opportunities of the role, the dynamics of the transference and working as a therapy pair to further elucidate the realities and fantasies of psychedelic therapy.

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Nadav Liam Modlin (MBACP) is a psychological therapist, research associate and lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London. With an interest in psychopharmacology and clinical expertise in treating psychological trauma, at the IoPPN Liam works as a research therapist, clinical investigator and therapist trainer on studies exploring the safety and efficacy of psychedelics. Liam also conducts trauma-focused qualitative research investigating patients perspectives around symptoms, self-management, and experience of currently available and novel treatments for psychological trauma. His lectures at the IoPPN explore psychotherapeutic models in clinical trials investigating the safety and efficacy of psychedelics, the potential applications of psychedelic-assisted therapy in military populations and psychotherapy in MDD and PTSD. He is also the co-founder of the Maudsley Psychedelic Society Harm Reduction ‘Integration’ Group. Based in London, Liam has a private counselling & psychotherapy practice and has also worked in various NHS mental health services delivering psychodynamic psychotherapy and as a team Lead.

 

Carolina Maggio (MBACP) is a psychological therapist at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London. She works on studies exploring the safety and efficacy of psychedelics such as psilocybin, MDMA and 5-MeO-DMT, in patient populations such as PTSD and MDD. As part of her work in psychedelic research, Carolina works as mentor and therapist trainer, as well as facilitator of the Maudsley Psychedelic Society Harm Reduction & Integration Group. With a relational approach to counselling and psychotherapy, her private practice is focused on understanding and making use of the connection between trauma, transpersonal experience and psychospiritual development. Appreciating the transformative potential of psychological crisis, her work also explores trauma recovery through the use of creativity and imagination, as a vehicle to integrate the experience of non-ordinary states of consciousness.

Gita Vaid

“Healing and Transformation: Psychedelic Psychotherapy – A New Frontier”

Dr. Vaid will describe how psychedelic medicines can be used within a psychotherapeutic context to catalyze transformation, self-actualization and growth.
Ketamine’s unique signature and subjective experience will be described along with its implications and impact on the therapeutic encounter. The expanded role and function of the psychotherapist will be examined and discussed. Clinical vignettes will be presented to illustrate the concepts presented.

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Dr. Gita Vaid is a Board Certified Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. Dr Vaid completed her residency training at NYU Medical Center and her psychoanalytic training at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Education affiliated with NYU. Her early biological and research background includes a completed fellowship in clinical psychopharmacology and neurophysiology at New York Medical College and a research fellowship at NYU Medical Center.

Gita serves as the International Course Director for Mind Medicine Australia’s Certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies Training Program. She is a leader in ketamine assisted psychotherapy which she practices in New York City.  She serves as a lead instructor at The Ketamine Training Center with psychedelic psychotherapy pioneer, Dr. Phil Wolfson.
Gita serves as the Director of Psychedelic Awareness and Consciousness research at The Chopra Foundation. She is a co-founder of the Center for Natural Intelligence — a multidisciplinary laboratory dedicated to psychedelic psychotherapy innovation and research.

Jonny Martell

“Psychedelic Therapy: Screening, Preparation and Safety”

As psychedelic therapies move towards regulatory approval, robust measures to minimise risks to patients and clients are needed. Drawing on my experience of working in psilocybin assisted therapy trials at Imperial College, I will explore the rationale for and processes of screening, preparation and other aspects of the work that aim to promote participant safety and containment of the material that emerges from the work.

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Jonny Martell is a medical psychotherapist working in Devon. He is an honorary clinical research fellow at the Imperial Centre for Psychedelic Research where he has worked as study doctor and guide on their psilocybin for depression, anorexia and healthy volunteer studies, as well as with DMT imaging studies. Prior to medical training he spent time working in Afghanistan and for a literary agency. He has undertaken trainings with the Institute of Group Analysis, the Institute of Psychoanalysis and is trained in peer-supported Open Dialogue. His main interests in psychedelics are with how broader cultural, historical and political contexts shape the current renaissance; and western bio-medicine’s capacity to serve as a cultural container. He’s drawn to the borders and their landscapes- he grew up in Northumberland and now lives in the Welsh Marches.

Willem Fonteijn

“Psilocybin, Therapeuticum and Mysticum”

Psilocybin is a psychedelic substance fast becoming a serious alternative to the countless antidepressants in the mental health care field. In this talk, we will explore recent scientific research and the effect of psilocybin on the brain. Taking psilocybin in the proper set and setting can lead to an experience of ultimate truth and a lasting correction of dysfunctional core beliefs. We will explore the therapeutic and consciousness-expanding effect of psilocybin.  After an introduction to recent literature, the talk starts with a description of Willem’s experience with a high-dose intake of psilocybin. Then the experiences, good trips and hard trips, of more than 250 participants in the 3-day Mindfulness and Psilocybin retreats that Willem has given are discussed.

Central insight is to cultivate the neutral observer. The neutral-observer stance facilitates beneficial and endurable change. The neutral-observer stance is developed during mindfulness meditation and practiced during the psilocybin ceremony. The previous experience with mindfulness meditation and the development of the neutral-observer intensifies possible mystical effects of the psilocybin retreat with a possible profound oneness experience as an outcome.

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Willem Fonteijn is a Dutch clinical psychologist with 40 years of experience in mental health care. He was head of the department of Medical Psychology in the Catharina Teaching Hospital in Eindhoven and supervisor for psychotherapists in training. He published more than 20 papers in reputed journals. He is an enthusiastic mindfulness practitioner, living a happy and healthy life in Amsterdam. Nowadays he facilitates psilocybin retreats, offering participants from all over the world the to experience a psychedelic and spiritual journey.

Robin Carhart-Harris

This talk will take a multi-level view of the brain action of classic psychedelic drugs, i.e., drugs that share the property of activating the serotonin 2A receptor. Beginning at the receptor level, it moves through a developmental and evolutionary understanding of serotonergic functioning and brain plasticity, placing emphasis on the context dependency of responses to classic psychedelic compounds. It reviews the dynamic, whole-brain action of psychedelics and how this relates to knowledge of the development and evolution of global brain function and anatomy. It frames our understanding of the therapeutic action of psychedelic therapy within a predictive coding framework and reviews recent trial and imaging results from a double-blind randomized controlled trial of psilocybin therapy vs escitalopram for depression.

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Robin Carhart-Harris is the Ralph Metzner Distinguished Professor in Neurology and Psychiatry and Director of Neuroscape’s Psychedelics Division at the University of California, San Francisco. He moved to Imperial College London in 2008 after obtaining a PhD in Psychopharmacology from the University of Bristol. Robin has designed human brain imaging studies with LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and DMT, and several clinical trials of psilocybin therapy for severe mental illnesses. Robin founded the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London in April 2019, was ranked among the top 31 medical scientists in 2020, and in 2021, was named in TIME magazine’s ‘100 Next’ – a list of 100 rising stars shaping the future. His research is creating system-level change in mental health care.

Robin Carhart-Harris

This talk will take a multi-level view of the brain action of classic psychedelic drugs, i.e., drugs that share the property of activating the serotonin 2A receptor. Beginning at the receptor level, it moves through a developmental and evolutionary understanding of serotonergic functioning and brain plasticity, placing emphasis on the context dependency of responses to classic psychedelic compounds. It reviews the dynamic, whole-brain action of psychedelics and how this relates to knowledge of the development and evolution of global brain function and anatomy. It frames our understanding of the therapeutic action of psychedelic therapy within a predictive coding framework and reviews recent trial and imaging results from a double-blind randomized controlled trial of psilocybin therapy vs escitalopram for depression.

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Robin Carhart-Harris is the Ralph Metzner Distinguished Professor in Neurology and Psychiatry and Director of Neuroscape’s Psychedelics Division at the University of California, San Francisco. He moved to Imperial College London in 2008 after obtaining a PhD in Psychopharmacology from the University of Bristol. Robin has designed human brain imaging studies with LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and DMT, and several clinical trials of psilocybin therapy for severe mental illnesses. Robin founded the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London in April 2019, was ranked among the top 31 medical scientists in 2020, and in 2021, was named in TIME magazine’s ‘100 Next’ – a list of 100 rising stars shaping the future. His research is creating system-level change in mental health care.

Andy Letcher

An increasing amount of anecdotal, and now empirical, evidence suggests that certain psychedelics, taken in favourable settings, can occasion experiences of profound connection or relatedness to the non-human world. Given the attested benefits of ‘nature-connection’ to human health, well-being and happiness this finding could not be more timely. However, it is also possible, at a time of climate emergency, that these psychedelically-assisted experiences might engender exactly the kind of ‘ecological self’ called for within the Deep Ecology movement, a self that will help steer us away from ecological ruin.

In this talk I will introduce the idea of the ecological self, and critically review the evidence for psychedelic ‘ecophanies’ and any resulting pro-environmental behaviour change. I will suggest that difficulties with the ecological self are perhaps overcome by new understandings of animism. Animism de-centres the human and asks us to find right and respectful relations with the non-human world. In other words, ecological epiphanies merely point us in the right direction and from there the work begins.

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Dr Andy Letcher is a Senior Lecturer at Schumacher College, Devon UK, where he is programme lead for the MA Engaged Ecology. He has doctorates in Ecology (University of Oxford) and the Study of Religion (King Alfred’s College, Winchester). He is the author of Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom and ‘Mad Thoughts on Mushrooms: Discourse and Power in the Study of Psychedelic Consciousness’, and has spoken at many conferences giving a critical view on the emerging psychedelic influence on contemporary culture.

James Rucker

Psilocybin therapy has gained much interest over the past 10 years as a possible treatment for depression, amongst other things. Commercial interest is now driving a well-worn path of clinical trial development that, as much as it has the power to change perceptions about psilocybin, isn’t particularly well suited to the cause. In the meantime, a certain fervour of clinical hype and investor hyperbole may risk corrupting a delicate psychotherapeutic process that is uniquely sensitive to context. In this talk I will discuss the design and results of some of the latest clinical trials using psilocybin, reflecting on a journey that first started for me back in 2015 when I sat with the first patient in the UK to be given psilocybin in a clinical trial setting. We might perhaps use this as a segue into a more 2-way discussion about the pros and the cons of psilocybin being ‘medicalised’ in this way, and where the field might be headed in years to come.

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James Rucker is a Consultant Psychiatrist and a Senior Clinical Lecturer in mood disorders and psychopharmacology at the Centre for Affective Disorders at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London (UK). James completed his medical degree at University College London (UK) in 2003 before training in psychiatry at the Maudsley, Bethlem and Springfield Hospitals in South London. He completed his PhD in the molecular biology of mood disorders at King’s College London in 2012. He specialises clinically and academically in mental health problems predominantly associated with mood and is particularly interested in novel drug treatments and drug assisted forms of therapy in treatment resistant forms of depression, anxiety and trauma response syndromes. He is currently a fellow with the National Institute for Health Research, investigating psilocybin therapy as a possible treatment for major depression resistant to standard treatments. He leads the Psychoactive Trials Group at King’s College London, which specialises in clinical trials using psilocybin and related compounds. Clinically, he works with Professor Allan Young at the National Affective Disorders Service, which is a specialist NHS treatment centre for mood disorders at South London and Maudsley NHS Trust. He is also expert in the use of Cannabis Based Medicinal Products for mental health problems, having worked for Sapphire Medical, the first CQC-approved medical cannabis clinic since its inception in 2019.

Maestro Nelson

Maestro Nelson is a Shipibo curandero (healer), taught by his brother, their father, their grandparents, and in direct lineage of their ancestors. The Shipibo live along the Ucayali River in the northeastern region of the Peruvian Amazon, using jungle plant medicines and Ayahuasca-Chacruna for physical, psychological, and spiritual healing. He will begin and end the presentation with a Shipibo sacred healing song, called icaros, to open the energy space for protection and healing. Maestro Nelson will describe the various Shipibo rituals in their healing ceremonies, their methods of training to be a curandera/o, and the importance of dieta (ingesting the plants and trees) to transmit healing energies during ceremonies to heal the patients’ illnesses, mental states, and soul retrieval. We are grateful to Maestro Nelson for coming to speak to the IPT community about his work and relationship with Ayahuasca, his training as a curandero and what healing means in this context. We are also grateful to Jerome Braun, a previous keynote speaker and dear ally of IPT on this work, who has a connection and relationship to Maestro Nelson’s work, had created the bridge between us and will support us with translation. All proceeds from tickets from this event will be donated to projects in support of the local community, the home of this work we will be learning from.

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Maestro Nelson Barbarán Gomez is a 35-year-old Shipibo curandero (healer) who lives in the northeastern region of the Peruvian Amazon. He has devoted his life since 15-years-old to the healing medicines of Ayahuasca-chacruna and the sacred plants and trees to help others recover from trauma, physical illness, ancestral disorders, and soul loss. Maestro Nelson founded a healing center near his village along with his brother, Maestro Javier, and his sister-in-law, Maestra Anita, who provide Ayahuasca-chacruna ceremonies and medicinal plant treatments at their center. His mission includes helping locals and foreigners to heal, help local youth to learn the Shipibo language and ancestral Shipibo traditions, and teach those who are interested in plant medicines to heal others.

Chris Bache

With the increasing acceptance of psychedelic therapy (and Holotropic Breathwork) in our culture, it is important that we begin to address the capacity of psychedelics to initiate us into levels of consciousness that lie beyond the personal unconscious. How far can we push this process of cosmological engagement, and what are the ramifications of doing so for healthy integration? How do we integrate experiences of dissolving into levels of existence that lie far beyond space and time? In short, how does a finite being integrate experiences of infinity? What does “integration” even mean in these contexts?Drawing on my work in LSD and the Mind of the Universe, I will discuss four challenges that emerged for me in integrating my psychedelic journey – the challenge of 1) recall, 2) physical integration, 3) social integration, 4) the return to daily life. 

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Chris Bache, Ph.D. A professor by day and psychonaut by night, Chris has spent his life moving between the world of academia and psychedelic exploration. Trained as a philosopher of religion, he became convinced early in his career that psychedelics represented a revolution not only in psychology but in philosophy as well. By giving us systematic access to dimensions of consciousness that lie far beyond space-time reality, these “sacred medicines” are triggering a turning point in western thought and driving the emergence of a new academic discipline – psychedelic philosophyGrounded in the rhythms of his teaching and family life, Chris pushed his psychedelic practice hard, eventually moving beyond therapeutic healing and spiritual awakening to explore the deep structure of the universe itself. He worked for 20 years in therapeutically structured high-dose LSD sessions, followed by another 20 years digesting his experiences and extracting their core cosmological insights.Chris is professor emeritus in the department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University in Ohio where he taught for 33 years. He is also adjunct faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Emeritus Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and on the Advisory Council of Grof Legacy Training. An award-winning teacher, he has written four books: Lifecycles – a study of reincarnation in light of contemporary consciousness research; Dark Night, Early Dawn – a pioneering work in psychedelic philosophy and collective consciousness; The Living Classroom, an exploration of collective fields of consciousness in teaching; and LSD and the Mind of the Universe, the story of his 20-year journey with LSD. He is the father of three grown children, a Buddhist practitioner, and lives with his wife Christina Hardy in Weaverville, NC. Christina shares Chris’ passion for deep transformation as a professional astrologer and past-life therapist.

Jo O’Reilly

Jo will describe how ideas drawn from psychoanalysis offer a developmental perspective that seeks to identify the factors that influence and determine how we feel, relate and behave. Being driven by powerful forces that we may struggle to understand is intrinsic to human life. Our need to love, to connect and to relate contrasts with acts fuelled by hatred, cruelty and alienation. Psychoanalytic thinking draws upon the intensity and passion of infantile life where survival depends on the ability to secure a nurturing attachment and regulate primitive terrors, as a starting point to consider how psychic energy is managed throughout life. The key concepts of psychodynamics will be outlined and relevance to psychedelic therapy will be discussed.

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Dr Jo O’Reilly is a Consultant Psychiatrist in Medical Psychotherapy working in Camden and Islington NHS Trust, London. She is a psychoanalyst and a member of the British Psychoanalytic Society. She is Chair of the Medical Psychotherapy Faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists where her priority is to develop a national approach to position psychological thinking at the centre of psychiatry. She chairs the Faculty working group on psychedelic therapy. Jo has also trained with MAPS and is a co-therapist in the MDMA assisted therapy program for PTSD.

Tim Read

Dr Tim Read is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and author based in London. After degrees in neuroscience and medicine, he was consultant liaison psychiatrist at the Royal London Hospital for 20 years also heading the crisis intervention service and developing psychological treatments for psychiatric emergencies. He has completed trainings in psychoanalytic psychotherapy (IGA) and transpersonal psychology with Stanislav Grof (GTT). He has been a certified facilitator of holotropic breathwork since 2007. Tim is extensively involved in clinical research of psychedelic assisted psychotherapy and with Maria Papaspyrou is co-facilitating the Depth Relational Process IPT 2-year training.

Tim is author of Walking Shadows: Archetype and Psyche in Crisis and Growth, co-editor with Jules Evans of Breaking Open: Finding a Way Through Spiritual Emergency and co-editor with Maria Papaspyrou of Psychedelics and Psychotherapy.

Diana Medina

Diana Medina is a training advisor and senior teacher for the Grof Transpersonal Training Program.  She has been a staff member with this program since 1999.  She also has practiced western medicine for over thirty-five years.  Diana has taught modules for the Holotropic Breathwork® training in Europe, Australia, Russia, Mexico, and the US.  She has also been an advisor for the Usona Institute in their research program using psilocybin for major depressive disorder.  Diana has had the unique opportunity to work alongside Stan Grof and Tav Sparks who were the early teachers of Holotropic Breathwork®.  Diana continues to practice family medicine in a rural Colorado community in the Southwest of the United States.  She enjoys the peace of living in the country with her partner. Her greatest passion is witnessing and supporting the human journey toward wholeness and health. She is particularly interested in the new wave of work using non-ordinary states in traditional settings.

Scott Hill

Scott J. Hill, Ph. D. In 2002, at the age of 55, Scott returned to graduate school at the California Institute of Integral Studies to more deeply understand his own traumatic yet ultimately life-enhancing psychedelic experiences in 1967. At CIIS Scott studied with two pioneers in transpersonal psychology and psychedelic experience, Stanislav Grof and Ralph Metzner, and constructed the only contemporary Jungian framework for understanding difficult psychedelic experiences.

Scott is the author of Confrontation with the Unconscious: Jungian Depth Psychology and Psychedelic Experience. Jungian analyst Stephen Martin of the Philemon Foundation (which sponsored publication of Jung’s Red Book) described Scott’s book as “a comprehensive volume, the first significant reconsideration of psychedelics in light of Jungian psychology since the 1950s” and “a sourcebook for those interested in such a natural interface.”

Scott lives in Sweden, where he continues to conduct independent scholarly research on the intersection between psychedelic studies and Jungian psychology. He is currently writing a memoir of his psychedelic experiences and his lifelong process of coming to terms with them. Scott holds degrees from the University of Minnesota (B.A., psychology; M.A., educational psychology) and the California Institute of Integral Studies (Ph.D., Philosophy and Religion).

Miranda Macpherson

Miranda Macpherson is a contemporary spiritual teacher and interfaith minister who shares a feminine approach to surrender and non-dual realization based on the practice of Ego Relaxation. Her wisdom and palpable transmission invites others to become more graceful human beings, deepening in inquiry, meditation, devotion and psychological integration. Grounded in extensive study of the worlds’ wisdom traditions, and inspired by Sri Ramana Maharshi, A Course in Miracles and the Diamond Approach, Miranda has been guiding others into direct experience of the sacred for thirty years. Founder the OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation in London, where she trained and ordained over 600 ministers and counsellors, today Miranda leads the Living Grace Global Sangha, and leads retreats internationally.

Her books include The Way of Grace: the Transforming Power of Ego Relaxation (Sounds True), Boundless Love (Ebury) and Meditations on Boundless Love (Sounds true). Unapologetically feminine, joyful and down to earth in her way of being, Miranda is dedicated to loving people all the way back into the freedom and wholeness of our true nature. She lives in the San Fransisco Bay Area with her husband Bob Duchmann.

www.mirandamacpherson.com

Rick Doblin

Rick Doblin, Ph.D., is the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). He received his doctorate in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he wrote his dissertation on the regulation of the medical uses of psychedelics and marijuana and his Master’s thesis on a survey of oncologists about smoked marijuana vs. the oral THC pill in nausea control for cancer patients.
His undergraduate thesis at New College of Florida was a 25-year follow-up to the classic Good Friday Experiment, which evaluated the potential of psychedelic drugs to catalyse religious experiences. He also conducted a thirty-four year follow-up study to Timothy Leary’s Concord Prison Experiment. Rick studied with Dr. Stanislav Grof and was among the first to be certified as a Holotropic Breathwork practitioner.
His professional goal is to help develop legal contexts for the beneficial uses of psychedelics and marijuana, primarily as prescription medicines but also for personal growth for otherwise healthy people, and eventually to become a legally licensed psychedelic therapist.
He founded MAPS in 1986, and currently resides in Boston with his wife and three children.

David Erritzoe

David Erritzoe is Clinical Senior Lecturer and Consultant Psychiatrist at Imperial College London and in CNWL Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. David conducts psychopharmacological research, using brain-imaging techniques such as PET and MRI. He was trained in PET imaging at Columbia University in New York and later undertook a PhD at University Hospital Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen. Since 2009 he has been involved in post-doc imaging research in the neurobiology of addictions and major depression at Imperial. As clinical director and deputy head in the Centre for Psychedelic Research, he investigates mechanisms and therapeutic potential of MDMA, ketamine and classic psychedelics [trials in depression, ocd, anorexia nervosa], and in early 2021 David set up a new NHS-based psychopharmacology & psychedelic research Clinic at St Charles Hospital in London, named the CIPPRes Clinic.

Becca Tarnas

Becca Tarnas, PhD, is a scholar, artist, and editor of Archai: The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology. She received her doctorate in Philosophy and Religion from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), with her dissertation titled The Back of Beyond: The Red Books of C. G. Jung and J. R. R. Tolkien. Her research interests include depth psychology, archetypal studies, literature, philosophy, and the ecological imagination. She teaches at both Pacifica Graduate Institute and CIIS, and is the author of the book Journey to the Imaginal Realm: A Reader’s Guide to J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Becca lives in Northern California, where she has an astrological counselling practice.
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Becca Tarnas, Ph.D.
Scholar & Astrological Counsellor
Author of Journey to the Imaginal Realm
Editor of Archai: The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology

Andrea Langlois

Andrea Langlois is a social alchemist, facilitator, and community-based researcher and is passionate about individual and social transformation, plant medicines, and community. For the last 5 years, she has been the director of engagement at the International Centre for Ethnobotanical Education, Research, and Service (ICEERS), an international NGO dedicated to transforming society’s relationship with psychoactive plants.

She is currently co-leading assessments on the biocultural sustainability of ayahuasca and iboga, which includes exploring models for reciprocity and benefit sharing with traditional stewards of these medicines. She holds a Master’s Degree in Media Studies from Concordia University in Montreal and BA in Women’s Studies from the University of Victoria.

David Luke

Dr David Luke is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Greenwich, UK, where he has been teaching an undergraduate course on the Psychology of Exceptional Human Experience since 2009, and he is also Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Psychedelic Research, Imperial College London, and Lecturer on the MSc Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology for Alef Trust and Liverpool John Moores University. His research focuses on transpersonal experiences, anomalous phenomena and altered states of consciousness, especially via psychedelics, having published more than 100 academic papers in this area, including eleven books, most recently Otherworlds: Psychedelics and Exceptional Human Experience (2nd ed., 2019).

When he is not running clinical drug trials with LSD, conducting DMT field experiments or observing apparent weather control with Mexican shamans he directs the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness salon at the Institute of Ecotechnics, London, and is a cofounder and director of Breaking Convention: International Conference on Psychedelic Consciousness. He has given over 300 invited public lectures and conference presentations; won teaching, research and writing awards; organised numerous festivals, conferences, symposia, seminars, retreats, expeditions, pagan cabarets and pilgrimages; and has studied techniques of consciousness alteration from South America to India, from the perspective of scientists, shamans and Shivaites. He lives life on the edge, of Sussex.

Annie Mithoefer

Annie Mithoefer, B.S.N., is a Registered Nurse living in Asheville, NC. She was co-investigator on two of the MAPS-sponsored Phase 2 clinical trials for individuals with PTSD and a pilot study treating couples combining MDMA-assisted psychotherapy with Cognitive Behavioral Conjoint Therapy for PTSD.

She is currently co-investigator in MT1, a protocol allowing MAPS-trained therapists to receive their own MDMA-assisted session, she conducts MAPS Therapist Trainings with her husband, Michael, and is a supervisor for Phase 3 therapists. She is a Grof-certified Holotropic Breathwork Practitioner and is trained in Hakomi Therapy.

Nir Tadmor

Nir Tadmor is a transpersonal psychotherapist in private practice and a co-founder of Safe Shore – a psychedelic education, harm reduction and peer support project. He holds a Master’s in Transpersonal Psychology from Middlesex University (through the Alef Trust) and trained in Hakomi body-centered psychotherapy.

For his Master’s thesis Nir conducted a phenomenological study about the psychospiritual integration process that unfolds in the lives of Western mental health professionals who use psychedelics for personal and professional growth. During the last 6 years, Nir worked as a mental health guide in various psychiatric-hospitalization alternatives, supported hundreds of psychedelic crises in parties and festivals and trained more than 600 psychedelic harm reduction sitters through Safe Shore’s Holding Space workshop.

Jerome Braun

Jerome Braun, M.A., LMFT, IAAP, is a bilingual Spanish- and English-speaking Jungian psychoanalyst practicing in San Francisco, California, offering pre- and postpsychedelic integration psychotherapy oriented in depth psychology. He trained and taught at the C. G. Jung Institute Kusnacht, Zurich, Switzerland, and he completed his training in the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research Certificate Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, California. Jerome is intricately involved in the Shipibo ancestral lineage of healing through medicinal, psychedelic, and sacred plants in the Peruvian Amazon.

Rachel Harris

Rachel Harris, Ph.D., is a psychologist with both a research and a clinical background. She was in the 1968 residential program at Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California, and remained on the staff for a number of years. During the decade, she worked in academic research, Rachel received a New Investigator’s Award from the National Institutes of Health and published over forty scientific studies in peer-reviewed journals.

She also worked as a psychological consultant to Fortune 500 companies including the UN. Rachel was in private psychotherapy practice for thirty-five years, specializing in people interested in psychospiritual development.

Rachel is the author of Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Anxiety. She’s currently working on a book based on interviews with psychedelic women elders who have been working underground for more than two decades. Visit Rachel at her website www.listeningtoayahuasca.com.