2022 San Francisco Certificate Schedule, Class Descriptions, and Teacher Bios

Thursday, April 7

Building Beloved Coomunity: Addressing Structural Racism in Healthcare by Staying “Woke”

This class will be taught by Shirley Strong, MEd, MA. She will discuss building a Beloved Community and addressing structural racism in healthcare. Structural racism, often referred to as structural competency, is the capacity for health professionals to recognize and respond to health and illness as the downstream effects of broad social, political, and economic structures. Factors include: food systems, zoning, infrastructure, immigration, and racism which are present in healthcare encounters. Clinicians, therapists, scholars, public health professionals, and educators can broaden their understanding of structural racism and microaggressions so as to more effectively treat individuals and the structural inequities that surround clinical relationships. Structural competency also offers ways to rethink the social and economic factors and interventions that impact health outcomes. After the presentation, a discussion will focus on these concepts and what psychedelic therapists need to know about addressing these issues during clinical treatment.

Shirley Strong, MEd, MA, is a social justice educator and advocate committed to increasing equity and inclusion in higher education and healthcare for underserved and vulnerable populations. She has worked in higher education, philanthropy and social justice for over thirty-five years, including eight years as Dean of Students and Director of Diversity at CIIS and five years as Chief Diversity Officer at Samuel Merritt University in Oakland, California. Currently, Shirley serves as senior advisor to the Structural Competency Working Group (SCWG), a cross section of health professionals who train health organizations to recognize and address structural racism in health care and to develop policies and procedures to improve health equity. Over time she reimagined her work to integrate spirituality with activism and became reacquainted with Beloved Community as her focus. She recently completed a second Master of Arts in Social Change (MASC). From here on out, Shirley intends to keep Beloved Community at the heart of everything she says and does for the rest of her life. She considers herself fortunate that her work matches her personal vision, and both continue to develop in response to her commitment to a Beloved Community as envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other prophetic leaders. Her working definition of a Beloved Community is “an inclusive, interrelated consciousness based on love, justice, responsibility, shared power and respect for the dignity of all persons, places and things that radically transform individuals and restructures institutions.”

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Training Values and Foci

The CIIS training program is developed around twelve curricular domains, based on decades of clinical research and the wisdom traditions that inform psychedelic therapies. A delineation of these fundamental domains of study for the training and development of these therapist skills will be discussed, such as: research designs, neuropharmacology, safe set and setting, therapy skills for working with diverse populations, therapeutic relationships, didactic and experiential models, complementary techniques, theories of consciousness, psychospiritual models of mystical experiences, equity issues in health care delivery, and co-therapy skills. These ideas are woven throughout the training program, including the values and perspectives that we hope each trainee will gain and embody by the end of the program. During this weekend, we will address a range of varied interpretations of these therapeutic skills as taught by dozens of leaders in the field during our classes. Optimal therapist training models can be culled from the dispersed psychedelic literature of the past six decades. Trainees will be inspired in this class to review their prior therapy and consultation training in light of the important subtle and obvious differences between psychedelic-assisted therapies vs. traditional talk therapies and patient assessment. This class serves as an overview for what is to come in the entire training program.

Janis Phelps, PhD, is a leader in the field of psychedelic therapy training as the Director of the Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies Center. As the Center’s founder, Dr. Phelps developed and launched the first university accredited, post-graduate training program for psychedelic therapy and research. She has held the position of the Dean of Faculty of the six doctoral departments in the CIIS School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Her 2017 journal publication, Developing Guidelines and Competencies for the Training of Psychedelic Therapists, describes best practices in the academic training of medical and mental health professionals in this field . These ideas are further developed in a 2019 chapter on “Training Psychedelic Therapists” in Advances in Psychedelic Medicine, edited by Michael Winkelman and Ben Sessa. Dr. Phelps is a board member of the Heffter Research Institute, which has conducted highly influential psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy research since the 1990’s. A licensed clinical psychologist, she is a key contributor to the creation of a national accreditation board for psychedelic therapists and to methods of scaling effective training programs to meet the burgeoning need for well-trained mental health and medical professionals in the field of psychedelic medicine. Dr. Phelps maintains a private clinical practice in Mill Valley, CA.

 

Friday, April 8

Therapist Competencies and Therapeutic Processes: Science, Art, and Practical Matters in Session Guidance

This seminar will focus both on the "being" and "doing" of effective therapists in psychedelic research, and on methods for the development and strengthening of personal qualities and practical skills that are advantageous in the implementation of research projects. Sensitivity to the challenges of skillfully communicating in supportive ways when clients are experiencing a variety of alternative states of consciousness will be explored, as will the importance of one's own genuineness and capacity to maintain presence and openness to whatever experiential content may be expressed during entheogenic sessions. This seminar will also focus on the practical implementation of the principles surveyed earlier with careful reflection on the past experiences and current thinking that influence the structure of sessions during therapy with psilocybin.

William (Bill) Richards, STM, PhD, is a psychologist at the “Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research” at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he and his colleagues have pursued research with psilocybin for the past two decades. He is also a clinician at the Aquilino Cancer Center in Rockville MD, which hosts the Bill Richards Center for Healing, and a clinician in private practice in Baltimore. He is the Director of Therapy at Sunstone Therapies. His graduate training in clinical psychology and the psychology of religion included studies at Yale University, the University of Göttingen, Andover-Newton Theological School, Brandeis University, and Catholic University. After encountering psilocybin research in Germany in 1963, he contributed to psychotherapy research with LSD, DPT, MDA, and psilocybin at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center from 1967 to 1977. Columbia University Press published his seminal book, Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences, in 2015.

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Core Competencies and the Healing Presence of Therapist Guide: Didactic

In this class, Mary Cosimano will present on compassion, connection, authenticity, play, and therapeutic competencies. She will discuss her personal belief about love as our true authentic nature and as one of the main outcomes of the psilocybin studies. She will also talk about her view around the value of play and fun, and then share why she regards these as deeply important to our work as psychedelic therapists and how they relate to therapeutic competencies. Mary will cover the primary therapeutic competencies necessary for guiding psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and discuss the competencies that are important for guiding psychedelic sessions with emphasis on presence, empathy and non-directive support. She will also cover the importance of establishing a safe set and setting in sessions with focus on safety issues (e.g., working with women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ clients), agreements, intentions and comfort. A question-and-answer period is planned as part of the presentation.

Mary Cosimano, LMSW, is currently with the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is the Director of Clinical Services for the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research (CPCR) and has served as study guide and research coordinator for the psilocybin studies for 21 years. During that time, Mary has been a session guide, involved with all the psilocybin and Club Drug studies (Salvia Divinorum and Dextromethorphan) and has conducted close to 475 study sessions. She has trained post doctorate fellows, research assistants and interns as assistant guides and administered the psychological evaluations for psilocybin studies. She taught individual and group meditation to breast cancer patients in a Johns Hopkins research study and teaches at California Institute to Integral Studies (CIIS) for their Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research program (CPTR) and conducts trainings for therapists in psychedelic psychotherapy. In 2003 she started and has maintained a meditation group for employees in her department. She also has 15 years of experience with direct patient care as a hospice volunteer.

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Ayahuasca Experiences from a Psychotherapeutic View

In this class, Anja Loizaga-Velder will review the different aspects of the Ayahuasca experience from a psychotherapeutic perspective, as well as strategies to support the preparation for such experiences and their integration into lasting life changes. We will also review mechanisms of change that have been identified in observational studies with participants who have attended ayahuasca ceremonies seeking healing from substance dependency and eating disorders. Findings from these studies will be complemented and reflected on in the light of experiential knowledge, that Anja has acquired in over two decades of training and collaboration with indigenous plant medicine practitioners. She will also offer case reviews from her clinical practice gained from accompanying integration of ayahuasca experiences and in-depth psychotherapeutic work. Finally, also the shadow side of the use ayahuasca and other psychedelics will be addressed reflecting on experiences from psychotherapeutic work with patients who have suffered trauma from inappropriate ayahuasca use, shedding light on the importance of ethical, experienced and knowledgeable practitioners, as well as well-structured and supportive contexts in this work.

Anja Loizaga-Velder, PhD, is a German-Mexican clinical psychologist and psychotherapist with humanistic orientation. Parallel to her psychotherapeutic practice Anja has been learning from and collaborating with indigenous healers specialized in the therapeutic use of sacred plants. She also has dedicated part of her professional life to the scientific research of therapeutic potentials of psychedelic plant medicines. She earned a doctoral degree in Medical Psychology from Heidelberg University through research dedicated to identifying therapeutic mechanisms of ayahuasca assisted treatment for mental health challenges and is coordinating the mental health section of a Mexican transdisciplinary research group on the therapeutic potentials of psilocybin mushrooms. She is founding member and director of research and clinical services at the Nierika Institute for Intercultural Medicine in Mexico, an NGO dedicated to the preservation of indigenous traditions with sacred plant medicines and research around their therapeutic applications in the treatment of mental health challenges.

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The Braided Way: A Cross Cultural Approach to Integration

"When the Wisdom of the Sky and the Wisdom of the Earth are braided through the human heart, then there will be a rainbow of people." This prophecy of Indigenous Peoples speaks to the practice of braiding traditional and contemporary knowledge, creating something entirely new that embraces both rather than replacing one or the other. This experiential workshop will explore the use of ancient modalities (drumming, guided journeys, breath, mudras, etc.) and our growing knowledge from today's science and research to access and ground non-ordinary states. Discussion will include how to make insights sustainable, and methods of taking action to bring about change. The group's experiences and questions will assist our exploration. Participants will achieve an understanding of methods that can evoke integration of changing states of awareness and remembrance of the profound and sacred promise of life.

Patricia James, BA, is a Medicine Woman and cross-cultural expert. She is of Seminole heritage, and a traditionally trained Cheyenne Pipe Carrier and Priest. Her focus is on bridging ancient wisdom with our contemporary times, bringing practical application to the mystical, and to weaving a new “Braided Way” to live life well. Initiated in multiple indigenous spiritual traditions, Patricia has studied wisdom practices and is trained in modern healing modalities including breathwork and hypnotherapy. She compliments this knowledge with over two decades in public administration. Patricia maintains a private practice in the Bay Area that focuses on psycho-spiritual mentoring, integration, teaching, and workshops. She provides teachings and ritual-based ceremonies throughout the country.    

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The Art of Guiding High-Dose Psilocybin Sessions: Reenactments and Discussion

This panel consists of Mary Cosimano, MSW, Bill Richards, PhD, and Brian Richards, PsyD. They will discuss vignettes that they enacted and recorded, based on experiences they have witnessed as guides in psilocybin-assisted treatment sessions. These vignettes are composed of different scenarios that illustrate managing fear, paranoia and other forms of distress, as well as joy and exaltation.  There is an emphasis on presence, empathy, and firm support when required.  During these sessions, we will view these scenes in small clusters and then discuss with one another and the panel members the issues, principles and techniques portrayed.

Brian D. Richards, PsyD, completed his Psy.D. at the University of Denver and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit, where he contributed to some of the original research administering psilocybin with cancer patients and healthy normal adults. Dr. Richards was formerly a Clinical Director with MedOptions, the largest behavioral health provider in the United States. He also provides Advanced Screenings at Oasis, an acute outpatient center in Maryland, and cares for patients with a cancer diagnosis at Maryland Oncology Hematology, The Aquilino Cancer Center. Dr. Richards was a Lead Trainer and Mentor for Compass Pathways, and he also mentors students at CIIS. He was a Lead Psychologist on a simultaneous group administration high-dose psilocybin trial with Cancer patients at the Aquilino Cancer Center in Rockville, Maryland. This psychedelic medicine clinic—located in a busy

outpatient oncology center—is the first of its kind, and may serve as a prototype for future clinics nationwide. Dr. Richards’ clinical and research interests include meaning-centered psychotherapy, mystical experience, brain science-based approaches to vibrant health, and working with treatment refractory patients. He finds joy and meaning practicing yoga, gourmet cooking, working in nature, growing medicinal mushrooms, and caring for wildlife and plants.

Please see above for Dr. Bill Richards’ and Mary Cosimano’s bio.

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Special Topics in the Neurobiology of Psychedelics

Following a brief synopsis of foundational concepts in molecular and cellular neurobiology, we will extend the discussion into recent basic and clinical science with psychedelic medicines. This includes detailed investigation of the molecular interactions between psychedelics and neurotransmitter receptors in the brain, investigations of neuroplasticity at the cellular level, and measurement of whole-brain activity with imaging technologies such as fMRI and MEG.  Some of these studies are not so clear and straightforward in their interpretation as they often appear in the popular media surrounding them. We will compare and contrast what is understood about molecular mechanism in different kinds of psychedelic substances – ranging across classical psychedelics, MDMA, salvinorin, nitrous oxide, and ketamine, for example. We will continue the exploration of molecular structure by talking about the relevance of stereochemistry.  And we will discuss some of the nuances of clinical efficacy, including the role of placebo effects – one of the more potent exemplars of mind-body connection.

David E. Presti, PhD, is a professor of neurobiology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught for 30 years. He also worked for more than a decade in the clinical treatment of addiction and post-traumatic stress at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in San Francisco, and since 2004 has been teaching and dialoguing about neuroscience with Tibetan Buddhist monastics in India, Bhutan, and Nepal. He has been involved in shifting policy related to research and psychotherapy with psychedelics for 30 years. He has doctorates in biology from Caltech and in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon.

 

Saturday, April 9

Findings and Implications of Psychedelic Research for Existential and Psychospiritual Distress in Palliative Care

This lecture will review the history, scientific findings, and implications of psychedelic-generated mystical experience research to relieve the psychological, existential, and spiritual distress associated with cancer or at the end of life. Recent trials have demonstrated the efficacy of a single psilocybin-generated mystical experience in helping individuals with cancer cultivate meaning, enhance existential and psycho-spiritual well-being, and foster a greater acceptance of the dying process with less anxiety. The landmark findings of a rapid decrease in depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and demoralization along with improvements in spiritual well-being will be presented. Subjective features of a mystical experience include unity, sacredness, transcendence, ineffability, and an enhanced awareness of deeply felt positive emotions including that of love. The psilocybin-generated mystical experience offers a novel therapeutic approach to promote meaning and openness to the mystery of death. A review of existential and psychological distress in palliative care will be presented along with a discussion of the phenomenology of mystical experience drawn from both the world’s religious traditions and psychedelic experience. Implications for the scientific study of psychedelics and mystical experience for palliative and hospice care, enhanced psychological well-being, and a deeper understanding of the study of meaning and spirituality will be discussed.

Anthony P. Bossis, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine, an adjunct professor of classics and religious studies at University of Ottawa, and an Investigator at The Lundquist Institute. He is a researcher at the NYU Center for Psychedelic Medicine and since 2006 has been conducting FDA-approved clinical research with the psychedelic compound psilocybin. Dr. Bossis was director of palliative care research and co-principal investigator on the 2016 clinical trial demonstrating a significant reduction in emotional distress from a single psilocybin session in persons with cancer. He is study director and lead therapist on an FDA-approved clinical trial investigating a psilocybin-generated mystical experience upon religious leaders. Dr. Bossis, in collaboration with researchers at UCLA and UCSF, is currently developing the first national multi-center protocol investigating psilocybin in existentially-distressed patients in palliative care settings. Dr. Bossis is a training supervisor of psychotherapy at NYU-Bellevue Hospital Center and co-founder and former co-director of the Bellevue Hospital Palliative Care Service. He is a faculty member for CPTR at CIIS and for the Integrative Thanatology Certificate Training Program at the Art of Dying Institute / Open Center. Dr. Bossis is on the editorial board of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology and a guest editor (with Charles Grob, M.D.) for the journal’s Special Series on Psychedelics. He has a long-standing interest in comparative religion and mystical experience and on the interface of psychology and spirituality.  He maintains a private psychotherapy and consulting practice in NYC.

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Structural Competency Workshop: Examining the Structural Determinants of Health

Why are People Sick? Why do health disparities persist? How can we address them at their roots? This workshop goes beyond the common behavioral, cultural, and biological explanations of health disparities to examine the “upstream” social, political, and economic structures that produce and perpetuate modern social inequities. Topics to be discussed range from structural racism to strategies for responding to harmful structures.

Please see above for Shirley Strong’s bio.

Jen Matthews, MD, is an Integrative Pediatrician and serves as the Medical Director for the Pediatric Integrative Medicine Program at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland. Dr. Matthews completed the Integrative Medicine Scholars Program at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine and the Helms Course in Medical Acupuncture. In her research, Dr. Matthews studies Integrative Health Equity and how best to implement pediatric acupuncture and integrative medicine in caring for children who are underserved by traditional and complementary medical systems. She teaches Integrative Pediatric Pain Management as well as a curriculum that allows health care providers to examine their role as healers in the current medical landscape. Dr. Matthews is one of the original members of the Structural Competency Working Group and has been facilitating Structural Competency training for the past 6 years.

Chanda Williams, MA, C-IAYT, RYT E-500, has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and master's degrees in integrative health and depth somatic psychology. Since 2015, she has facilitated yoga classes inside San Quentin State Prison. Chanda is a UCSF predoctoral fellow and doctoral candidate in somatic depth psychology researching the long-term impact of trauma-informed, mindfulness-based yoga therapy for incarcerated populations. Chanda is collaborating with UCSF faculty to examine the current uptake and acceptability of integrative oncology practices among Black individuals with cancer. She is also a research specialist for a clinical research study sponsored by UCSF and the VA, evaluating the effects of mindfulness-based movement for veterans with post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD). A yoga practitioner since 1996 and a certified teacher since 2005, she is dedicated to the application of Mind-Body approaches to improve the well-being of marginalized, underserved, and under-resourced populations. 

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Perils & Pearls: Psychedelic-Facilitated Experiences and the Research Set & Setting

Karen Cooper shares perspectives from her psychedelic research experiences over a 6-year period, focusing on the introduction of models and concepts that may be useful when doing this work in the research setting. She will provide helpful hints and anecdotes from high-dose psilocybin and MDMA-assisted therapy work.

Karen Cooper, RN, BSN, MA, served as Guide-therapist from 2016-2021 for Phase 2 and 3 MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy therapy for PTSD studies. She was Lead Guide and Clinical Research Nurse for the University of Wisconsin’s Psilocybin Pharmacokinetic Study and served as the study trainer with the Usona Institute in Madison, WI from 2013-2016. She is currently Instructional Supervisor and Director of Mentoring at the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at CIIS. Karen’s Master’s degree in Holistic Health Education at John F. Kennedy University included a focus on transpersonal and somatic psychology; she’s a Licensed Massage Therapist and certified yoga teacher, with current practices of meditation, yoga, and Qigong for over 30 years. Her eclectic nursing background from prenatal and neonates to end-of-life hospice has supported her love for teaching, science, consciousness, psychology, psychedelics, and spirituality. Her outside interests include gardening, fiber arts, and exploring the natural beauty and outdoor activities near her home in Northern Colorado with husband Dan Muller. Karen’s on-going personal and professional development and perspectives related to inclusivity, differences, belonging, healing, and compassion are influenced by life experiences being female, bi-racial, and growing into elderhood.

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  Core Competencies and the Healing Presence of Therapist Guide: Role-Play

This an experiential class which will consist of 2 role plays followed by discussions and a question-and-answer period. The role plays will be used to incorporate the information and techniques discussed in Mary’s prior class which focused on the role of preparation for optimal sessions, therapeutic competencies that are important for guiding psychedelic sessions, and the importance of touch and non-verbal expression. 

Please see above for Mary Cosimano’s bio.

 

Sunday, April 10 

Thoughts on Mushrooms: Discourse and Power

This talk will be a close reading of Andy Letcher's insightful paper that explores the role of language and power in regulating who can speak and what can be said about psychedelic and psychedelic consciousness. Letcher draws on some basic concepts from Michel Foucault's writing to illuminate the multiple levels at which control of discourse affects what we can know, what we can study and what can be spoken aloud (and where).

Role-Play with Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy Scenarios from the NYU Research

This beginner’s exercise offers an introductory experience of preparatory therapy, guiding a session, integration work and then supervision of the experience. We will divide into groups of three; each triad will have a therapist, a journeyer and a witness. Each journeyer will have a written scenario to work from, and the therapist will do preparatory work as the journeyer enacts their character. A journey follows, then aftercare/debriefing. The witness watches everything and provides feedback at the end of the exercise, and when all reconvene, there will be a group discussion of the experience, focusing on the personal values and qualities we each hope to bring to this work. This will be followed by small group discussions.

Jeffrey Guss​, MD, is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and researcher with specializations in psychoanalytic therapy and the treatment of substance use disorders. He was Co-Principal Investigator and Director of Therapist Training for the NYU School of Medicine’s study on psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of cancer-related existential distress. He is currently a study therapist in a trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy for alcoholism and the MAPS MDMA for PTSD study and co-wrote the therapy manual for Yale’s depression and psilocybin study. Dr. Guss is interested in the integration of psychedelic therapies with contemporary psychoanalytic theory and has published in ​Studies in Gender and Sexuality​ and ​Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Society​. He is an instructor and mentor for the Center for Psychedelic Therapies & Research certificate program and maintains a full-time private practice.

 

Saturday, May 21

Psyche Unbound: The Legacy of Stanislav Grof, MD

Stanislav Grof, MD, Ph.D., has been a leading advocate for psychedelic research for well over half a century.  “There is probably no one alive today who possesses as broad and profound a practical knowledge of the processes of deep psychological transformation and non- ordinary states of consciousness as does Stanislav Grof” (Richard Tarnas, Ph.D in his forward to Grof’s encyclopedic The Way of the Psychonaut). Grof’s pioneering work in the field of psychedelic psychotherapy is seminal. This presentation on the legacy of Stanislav Grof will include an introduction to Grof’s early research and clinical work with LSD;  the development of Grof’s ‘cartography’ of the psyche;  Grof’s ‘holotropic’ perspective; his contribution to what we know as ‘best practices’ in psychedelic psychotherapy; and the development of holotropic breathwork, a powerful tool for self- exploration that involves the use of enhanced breathing, evocative music, focused bodywork, art, and group process.

Diane Haug, MA, LPCC is a licensed therapist living in northern New Mexico.  Having completed the Grof’s first three-year training program, she has been involved in the field of transpersonal psychology since 1989.  In that capacity she has staffed and taught Grof training modules internationally in countries including China, Russia, Ukraine, Scandinavia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. Diane is currently a founding director of the Grof Legacy Project USA and adjunct faculty with the CIIS Center for Psychedelic Therapy and Research certificate program.  In 2021 Diane served as the Director of the CPTR Mentoring Program.

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Set and Setting Beyond Research

The terms 'set' and 'setting' are widely used in the psychedelic literature and by practitioners as shorthand for an important set of variables that therapists can use in the service of psychedelic-assisted therapy. What are set and setting, and why do they matter? In this class, Dr. Tony Back will discuss protocols and considerations for set and setting in clinical models of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, including special considerations for clients who are of Asian descent or identify as LGBTQ.

Anthony Back, MD, is a co-founder of VitalTalk, a national nonprofit that provides innovative, interactive clinician and faculty development courses to improve communication skills on an individual and institutional level. Dr. Back is a professor of medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Dr. Back earned his MD at Harvard University. He is a triple-board certified in hospice and palliative medicine, medical oncology, and general internal medicine. In his role as a medical communication educator and a VitalTalk co-founder, Dr. Back was the principal investigator for Oncotalk, co-wrote Mastering Communication with Seriously Ill Patients, released the first iPhone app for clinician communication skills, and authored the online communication skills curriculum offered by the Center to Advance Palliative Care.

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Halfway Up the Mountain: Set, Setting and Cultural Considerations

This lecture is intended to acknowledge the gap in access to care that may arise within the context of the unfolding psychedelic renaissance. The potential for medicalizing and commercializing psychedelic assisted psychotherapy poses a serious risk of direct and indirect harm if clinicians approach psychedelic assisted psychotherapy along the lines of business as usual. In order to address this potentially adverse outcome, clinicians have a responsibility to recognize within themselves the barriers that a lack of empathy poses to individuals desiring to facilitate healing via psychedelic medicines both natural and manufactured. This experience will result in an "uncomfortable empathy" which prompts actions to lay the foundations for genuine, compassionate change. This class will give special attention to microaggressions and unconscious bias both within and outside of clinical settings.

Robert Strayhan, MD, is a physician specializing in psychiatry. He has had a lifelong interest in cross-cultural and transpersonal psychiatry. He is a 2020 graduate of the CPTR program. He has completed the Three-Year Program of Advanced Initiations in Shamanism and Shamanic Healing, as taught by Michael Harner, PhD. He is particularly interested in examining how the construct of race can influence the set and setting of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. He has personally benefited from the study of various meditation techniques and has been a practitioner of Systema (a Russian martial art), Tai Chi and Afro-centric martial arts.

 

Sunday, May 22 

The Science of Drug Action for Psychedelic Therapists: Drug Metabolism and Drug Interactions

This pharmacology sequence is an introduction to psychedelic drug metabolism and drug interactions. The presentation will explain the role of the liver and other organs and their associated enzymes in the biotransformation of psychedelic drugs after they are ingested, and the effects of such transformations on drug activity and excretion. Following this, drug-drug and drug-food interactions, and their potential effects on drug response and toxicity, will be discussed. Actions that can mitigate toxic responses will be presented. Together, these topics provide a basis for understanding how drugs are transformed in the body and precautions for administering drugs to certain populations. These understandings are essential for professionals to anticipate and avoid potential complications that could arise in psychedelic-assisted therapy. Upon completion of these topics, students will know the major drug metabolizing enzymes and the impact of metabolism on pharmacological activity and drug excretion. Students will also know the major factors that enhance or inhibit drug metabolism and excretion. In addition, students will understand the major types of drug interactions and will be able to give examples of each.

Nicholas Vito Cozzi, Ph.D. is a scientist and educator with background and training in pharmacology, chemistry, toxicology, and neuroscience. He holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and a B.S. in Pharmacology and Toxicology, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy. Dr. Cozzi’s research involves the design, chemical synthesis, and pharmacological testing of substances with central nervous system activity, especially psychedelics, empathogens, antidepressants, and psychostimulants. He is interested in how these agents act in the brain to promote neuronal health, improve mood, enhance cognition, and increase awareness, and in their clinical value in treating addiction, depression, post-traumatic fear, neurological diseases, and other health ailments. Dr. Cozzi has published numerous articles and is internationally recognized for his work. As an educator, Dr. Cozzi taught pharmacology at East Carolina University and UW-Madison, and he is a frequent guest lecturer at other academic institutions around the United States. He has received several teaching and research awards, including a Distinguished Basic Science Teaching Award from the UW-Madison and a prestigious NARSAD Award from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation for his work involving the serotonin uptake transporter. Dr. Cozzi's research has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the UW-Madison, and private foundations. Outside academia, he serves as a scientific consultant for legal, pharmaceutical industry, and government clients. Dr. Cozzi is also Co-Founder, President, and Director of Pharmacology at the Alexander Shulgin Research Institute, a psychedelics discovery, development, and educational institute located in Lafayette, CA.

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Indigenous Perspectives on Conserving Peyote Practices and Protecting American Indian Religious Freedom

This class will provide some foundational understanding on the American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendments of 1994 which legally allow for use, possession, and transportation of Peyote by members of federally recognized tribes. Discussion on the pivotal court cases that granted protection for Peyote use within the Native American Church will also provide further context about the complex legal history surrounding Peyote use by Native Americans within the United States. Topics surrounding Peyote decline, threats, cultural appropriation, cultural misappropriation, and cultural sensitivity regarding traditional Indigenous practices will also be discussed as interest and use of Indigenous plant medicines are increasing. The class is designed to provide a historical background and insight from an Indigenous perspective while also offering ways in which individuals can exercise mindfulness, reverence, and consciousness of not only the practices of traditional Indigenous uses, but how to also be in respectful relationships with the plant medicines, and their traditional users.

Dawn D. Davis, PhD, is a mother, a wife, co-editor of the Journal of Native Sciences, a founding member of Source Research Foundation, a Newe and a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. She holds a Natural Resources Ph.D. from the University of Idaho for her dissertation entitled, "The Peyote Path: A Newe Perspective on Conserving a Sacred Medicinal Plant in Peril". As a student, Dawn was a twice awarded National Science Foundation recipient as a fellow under the Integrated Graduate Education Research Traineeship and an Indigenous STEM scholar. Her previous research has focused on the cultural, environmental, and anthropogenic issues that surround the revered Peyote (Lophophora williamsii) cacti which is integral to her spiritual practice. Dawn shares her research among Indigenous, academic, ethnobotanical, and psychedelic audiences nationally and internationally.

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A Bottom-up, Community-Driven, Ecosystem Approach to Healing

Sizwe Andrews-Abakah and Mizan Alkebulan-Abakah will focus on honoring the messages of the entheogenic plants and fungi by creating systems of healing that not only serve vulnerable communities but are actually built by leaders in these communities in collaboration with, and with the support and guidance of, subject matter experts from outside of the community. Our western model of healing seeks to treat acute physical or mental health symptoms, when often the source of illness is the poor health of the underlying socioeconomic and ecological systems. Slavery, colonialism, capitalism, and neo-colonialism have all relied on the extraction of resources from one group of people to benefit another group, with exploited groups and nations often defined and justified based on race, religion and class. Crises in our ecological and biospheric systems have caused grave concern even among those traditionally unaffected by crises in the social systems, and we’re nearing the critical mass needed for a monumental shift in paradigms from a scientific reductionist model to a more robust ecosystem approach to life, more in line with the fundamental inter-connected functioning of our planet and the universe. Spearitwurx will offer a model for healing centered engagement within the psychedelic community with a specific emphasis on sustained community integration.

Sizwe Andrews-Abakah is an Educator, Radical Healer and Mentor and has worked throughout the Bay Area. He has supported African American Wellness through the National Campaign for Black Male Achievement, Oakland Freedom School, Flourish Agenda's Camp Akili, Oakland Unified School District's Manhood Development Program, and Determination Black Men's Group at United Roots to name a few. He approaches the work with passion and insight. Sizwe believes that contentedness is our currency and building authentic intimacy is key in our relationships. The practice of being vulnerable with each other can helps us get to a place of transformation and liberation.

Mizan Alkebulan-Abakah, MPH, has worked for over 20 years as a community organizer and youth development professional. Her commitment to social justice has fueled her work as a crisis intervention specialist, health educator, curriculum writer, multi-modal workshop facilitator, community researcher, staff wellness coach, and School-Based Health Center Supervisor. Mizan is a certified Radical Healing Trainer and has a Masters Degree in Public Health.

 

Wednesday-Monday, June 22-27

MAPS MDMA Therapy Training Program Course Description

This training is an intensive introduction to the therapeutic approach used in clinical trials sponsored by MAPS and described in the Manual for MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy in the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. After that introduction, the June part of this course will be centered around watching videos from MDMA research sessions, pausing frequently for group discussion. Videos will include preparatory sessions, MDMA-assisted sessions, and integrative sessions, illustrating challenges that may arise and emphasizing the importance of preparation and integration, as well as set and setting. Participants will be encouraged to ask questions and to share their ideas about the nature of the therapeutic process and their personal reactions to watching the videos, some of which are emotionally intense. Time will be taken for self-care and home group support.

Michael Mithoefer, MD, is a psychiatrist living in Asheville, NC, who, for 25 years, has specialized in experiential therapies for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and is now Senior Medical Director for Medical Affairs, Training and Supervision at MAPS Public Benefit Corporation, where he is a member of the Executive Team. He and his wife, Annie, completed the first MAPS-sponsored Phase II clinical trial testing MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for crime-related PTSD, a subsequent study with military veterans, firefighters and police officers, and a pilot study treating couples with MDMA combined with Cognitive Behavioral Conjoint Therapy for PTSD.  He has been Medical Monitor for a series of six Phase 2 trials in the US, Canada, Switzerland and Israel, which produced data that led to breakthrough therapy designation by the FDA. Since 2012, he and Annie have conducted training for research therapists and are now supervising therapists in ongoing. MAPS Phase 3 clinical trials. He received his MD degree from the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and completed residency trainings in Internal Medicine at the University of Virginia and Psychiatry at MUSC. He is a certified Grof Holotropic Breathwork facilitator and is trained in Internal Family Systems Therapy and EMDR. He has been board certified in Psychiatry, Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine. He is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and Affiliate Assistant Professor at MUSC. 

Annie Mithoefer, BSN, is a registered nurse living in Asheville, NC. She has many years of experience treating people with PTSD in a private practice with her husband Michael and leading Holotropic Breathwork group workshops. She has worked as co-therapist in MAPS Clinical Trials. She and her husband, Michael Mithoefer, completed the first MAPS-sponsored Phase II clinical trial testing MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for crime-related PTSD, a subsequent study with military veterans, firefighters and police officers, and a pilot study treating couples with MDMA combined with Cognitive Behavioral Conjoint Therapy for PTSD.  She is now focusing on offering MDMA therapist trainings, and on supervising therapists in ongoing Phase 3 Clinical trials. She is a Grof certified Holotropic Breathwork Practitioner and is trained in Hakomi Therapy.

Joanna Simundic, RCSW, RCC, is a trained psychedelic therapist and the sole founder, owner and psychotherapist at Embracing Change Therapy, a private psychotherapy practice she started in 2013.  She supports individuals in processing traumatic material using a variety of techniques such as: EMDR, Mindfulness, IFS and various somatic approaches.  Joanna is registered as a Clinical Social Worker and Clinical Counsellor in the province of British Columbia. Joanna graduated from York University in Toronto, ON in 2006 with an Honours Undergraduate Degree in Psychology.  She also completed her Masters of Social Work at Wilfrid University in Kitchener, ON in 2012. Joanna trained with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (Links to an external site.) in 2018. She joined the Vancouver MAPS team in early 2016 as one of the MAPS Therapists for the MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy Clinical Trial Research Study in Vancouver, BC.  She has contributed to Phase II and III in helping MDMA become a legal therapeutic medicine in Canada. Joanna has been in the helping profession serving various populations for the last 14 years. She works with First Nations communities in Northern British Columbia and the Indigenous Yawanawá people in the state of Acre, Brazil. Her main passion is working with trauma survivors as she has also overcome extensive traumatic experiences in her own life.  Trauma work is her passion and calling in life as she supports individuals in healing traumatic material and achieving post traumatic growth.

Eric Sienknecht, Psy.D., is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in private practice in San Francisco and a Co-founder, Consultant and Lead Trainer at Polaris Insight Center, a ketamine-assisted psychotherapy treatment clinic and training center. He received his Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies in 2011 and advanced training in psychedelic psychotherapy with the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and the Ketamine Training Center (KTC). He currently serves as Sub-Investigator, Therapist and Supervisor on the MAPS MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy Phase 2/3 Clinical Trials for treatment-resistant PTSD. He writes articles for Chacruna Institute and Psychedelic Support Network and professional talks and at conferences on topics such as set and setting, ethics, and music in psychedelic therapy and research. His professional interests include psychoanalysis, consciousness research, mystical and peak experiences, mindfulness, and studying the synergistic effects of yoga, music, and psychedelics.

Saturday, September 10

Marginalized Voices, Racial Trauma, and Psychedelic Therapies

Trauma is caused by feeling profoundly unsafe – physically, emotionally, or spiritually – and is often the root of mental illness. Despite the misperception that PTSD is most commonly caused by a single event, for many people, simply existing in a society that marginalizes their identities is inherently and perpetually traumatic. Oppression, poverty, and discrimination can all contribute to traumatic experience at both individual and collective levels. These ongoing traumatic experiences – enhanced and compounded for people who exist at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities – are often under-diagnosed and thus under-treated. There is a vast potential for psychedelics to help heal trauma and move people toward wholeness. But how does that healing potential stand up to systemic oppression? Dr. Williams will discuss the traumatizing impact of life in America on racialized individuals and her research addressing the use of psychedelics to address trauma in people of color. This presentation will explore if and how psychedelics can contribute to healing the trauma that stems from racism and create a more just society.

Monnica Williams, PhD, is a board-certified, licensed clinical psychologist, specializing in cognitive-behavioral therapies. She is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Ottawa, Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Disparities, and Director of the Laboratory for Culture and Mental Health Disparities. She is also the Clinical Director of the Behavioral Wellness Clinic, LLC in Tolland, Connecticut, and she has founded clinics in Kentucky, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Dr. Williams has published over 100 scientific articles on mental health and culture. Her current work includes unacceptable thoughts in OCD, the impact of OCD on intimate relationships, improving cultural competence in the delivery of mental health care services, assessment of race-based trauma, and interventions to reduce racial bias. She previously served as principal investigator on a Phase 3 multisite trial for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, at the University of Connecticut Health Center. She also gives trainings nationally for clinical psychology programs, scientific conferences, and community organizations.

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Working with Religious Trauma as a Model for Trauma-Informed Consent in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

This session will include a talk, a speaker role play, and discussion led by Dr. Keith McCoy (he/him) and Emma Knighton (she/they), where they will share some of their own experiences participating in the 2019 CPTR program and learnings that arisen from it. One major theoretical framework for psychedelic psychotherapy is that it amplifies unresolved psychospiritual content, allowing participants to efficiently work through core fears and traumas, see their beliefs and behaviors in a new light, and move forward with a reduced burden of “illness” and a sense of increased wellness. Keith, from his own lived-experience perspective, will review ways that some psychospiritually-oriented practitioners have used “corrective” tools of psychology to oppress marginalized groups, specifically the LGBTQIA+ community, resulting in spiritual trauma; review how these tools are especially risky when combined with consciousness altering molecules; and outline how practitioners can understand the risks for communities with psychospiritual trauma. Keith's selected readings will include triggering aspects of a selected 2019 required text, as well as his response in his first Process Paper for the program. Emma will outline practical steps, including collaborative and trauma-attuned approaches to obtaining consent, that can be used to reduce the risk of harm and increase safety, connection, and the relational container in psychedelic assisted psychotherapy.

Keith McCoy, MD, is a psychiatrist living in Durham, NC and is a graduate of the CPTR 2019 cohort. He works for the State of North Carolina focusing on public sector health policy for individuals with behavioral health conditions and developmental disabilities. He has also worked as a consultation liaison and outpatient psychiatrist - focusing on care for adults with medical illnesses such as cancer diagnoses. Keith's approach to healing is empathy- and empowerment-based; he is generally skeptical about western gurusim, panaceas, and psychospiritual justifications of unethical care; and he advocates for strong systems of accountability for all of us who seek financial gain in return for practicing the craft of healing. 

Emma Knighton, MA, is a somatic trauma therapist, psychedelic integration therapist, and embodied organizer. In her clinical work, she specializes in working with folks with complex PTSD from childhood abandonment, neglect, and sexual abuse. Emma’s approach is grounded in queer, consent, and feminist theories and she works from an anti-oppression lens. Through her work, Emma strives to serve the psychedelic medicine and the sacred ancestral wisdom passed down through generations of healers.

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Military and Veterans in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Panel

This panel consists of certificate graduates who have each served as an active-duty service member, representing the United States Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy. The panel members will offer personal and professional perspectives on military and veteran experiences, while aligning clinical needs from the community with psychedelic-assisted therapies and research. This panel will focus on US military culture and experiences. Panel members will discuss their unique perspectives and approaches to multicultural issues within the broader mental health community. The panel will also address trainee questions during the discussion period.

Zach Skiles, PsyD, first experienced psilocybin in 2001 while stationed in Okinawa, Japan in the United States Marine Corps. Not long after this experience, he found himself invading Iraq, navigating combat operations and PTSD, which ultimately led to a transformative journey as a therapist helping veterans within his community. When helping to start the first PTSD clinic in South Sudan for veterans and family members of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army, Zach developed an interest in community-based care & traditional healing modalities. Starting in the US as a peer counselor for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, he trained as a clinical psychologist with the Northern California VA & Northern Arizona VA Health Care Systems, while also facilitating psychedelic-assisted therapies for individuals & groups of US Special Forces communities at The Mission Within. Currently continuing clinical trials of psychedelics in the veteran community, Zach works as a facilitator and scholar for the SNaP lab at the Portland VA.

Christina (Tina) Braddock, RN, BSN, CEN, is a registered nurse that identifies as a white heterosexual female who was born in Manhattan of Irish/Scottish/French descent. After witnessing the effects of 9/11 at a young age, she decided she would be the first in her family to serve in the U.S. Army and become an emergency trauma nurse. Upon commissioning as a medical officer in May 2012, she received many accolades throughout her 7+ years on active duty. While on an overseas assignment to Afghanistan and Kuwait, she gained tremendous insight into the warfighter's mind and began to facilitate yoga and meditation. She supports veterans as well as first responders from a whole health perspective by getting to the root of trauma suffering endured both in war and at home. She is working toward her doctorate in nursing practice for dual psychiatric mental health and family medicine at Hawaii Pacific University while residing on Kanaka Maoli land on the North Shore of Oahu. Tina is a graduate of the 2021 CIIS CPTR program. She is opening a wellness space, facilitating as a psychedelic integration nurse, and aspires to be a transformational nurse leader in the post traumatic growth and integrative medicine space. She bows in deep gratitude to her mentors, her personal healing journey, and continues to honor and fight for our ancestors and fallen warriors.

Robert Strayhan, MD, is a physician specializing in psychiatry. He has had a lifelong interest in cross-cultural and transpersonal psychiatry. He is a 2020 graduate of the CPTR program. He has completed the Three-Year Program of Advanced Initiations in Shamanism and Shamanic Healing, as taught by Michael Harner, PhD. He is particularly interested in examining how the construct of race can influence the set and setting of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. He has personally benefited from the study of various meditation techniques and has been a practitioner of Systema (a Russian martial art), Tai Chi and Afro-centric martial arts. Dr. Strayhan completed his psychiatry residency at Wilford Hall Medical Center USAF from 1983-1987. He then graduated from the School of Aerospace Medicine in 1990. He worked as Chief of Mental Health Services at USAF Air Force Academy from 1987-1990 and at Yokota Air Base, Japan from 1990-1993. He also served as a consultant in psychiatry for the Pacific Air Force Command Surgeon from 1990-1993 and has been a consultant to NASA for Astronaut Candidate Selection since 1999. He separated after three years of reserve duty at Carswell Joint Naval Training Base with the rank of Lt. Colonel.  

Robert Koffman, MD, MPH, is a Retired Navy Captain and the Senior Medical Adviser for Warrior Canine Connection. He currently serves as a board member of Wesana Health, is on the VETS’ Academic Advisory Board, the SEAL Future Foundation, and is the current Chair of the newly formed Board of Psychedelic Medicine and Therapies. A board-certified psychiatrist, psychiatric epidemiologist, and preventive medicine physician, he obtained his doctorate from the University of Santo Tomas, and his MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. Among his many clinical, operational, and leadership positions, he was Chief of Clinical Operations at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) aboard the Walter Reed campus in Bethesda, Maryland, and he was appointed as the Navy’s first head of Combat and Operational Stress Control (COSC). A disabled veteran himself, Koffman has dedicated himself to improving the delivery of mental health care in operational settings and is a passionate advocate for increasing access of non-stigmatizing psychological services. He is also a seasoned medical acupuncturist and recognized expert in Animal Assisted Therapies. Robert graduated from the 2020 CIIS CPTR program and is currently conducting research on treating depression in cancer patients with psilocybin, and is slated to soon begin MDMA-Assisted Therapy under FDA Expanded Access at the Bill Richards’ Center for Healing at the Aquilino Cancer Center. With passion, purpose, and commitment, Koffman hopes to champion these essential, healing modalities and medicines for service members and veterans.

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Certificate Graduate Panel: Their Current Work in the Field

We will be joined by several graduates from previous cohorts of the CPTR certificate program, who will share their experiences working with research organizations, businesses, and/or including integration work in their private practice.

Yvan Beaussant, MD, MSc is a French-trained hematologist and palliative care physician. He holds a Master’s in medical ethics, completed a two-year research fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and graduated in 2018 from the Certificate program in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research at CIIS, where he now serves as a mentor. Dr. Beaussant is faculty at Harvard Medical School and an instructor in the department of psychosocial oncology and palliative care at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he develops and assesses novel interventions addressing psychological and existential distress in patients with cancer and terminal illness. His team investigates the effects and applications of psychedelic-assisted therapies in this population through mixed-method trials, with the aim of developing novel evidence-based treatment regimens, refining safety and efficacy measurement, understanding mechanisms of action and implementing equitable treatment models. The team also started a feasibility study of psilocybin-assisted therapy to address demoralization in patients receiving hospice care. Dr. Beaussant’s work informs his vision that researching and integrating palliative and psychedelic medicines into our medical and societal models have the potential to improve serious illness care and to foster healing, growth and well-being in individuals and communities.

Andrew Penn, MS, PMHNP is a UC San Francisco trained psychiatric nurse practitioner. He serves as an associate clinical professor in the UCSF School of Nursing and practices at the San Francisco VA where he works with NP residents and students. He is a 2017 graduate of CPTR and has worked as a study therapist on the MAPS-sponsored  MDMA-assisted therapy protocol for PTSD and is currently a Co-Investigator on the Usona-sponsored study of psilocybin-facilitated therapy for depression. Along with three CPTR classmates, he co-founded the Organization of Psychedelic and Entheogenic Nurses (OPENurses.org) and has two papers in press on the role of nursing in psychedelics. Along with Charles Raison, MD, he is the co-chair of Sana Symposium, a national CME meeting on psychedelics. He can be found at andrewpennnp.com.  

Karina Sergi, MFT is a licensed psychotherapist and 2019 graduate of the CPTR program. She has worked extensively with individuals, couples and families in university, hospital, non-profit, research and private practice settings and currently works full-time as a psychedelic-assisted therapist, facilitator and clinical researcher at Pacific Neuroscience Institute. Karina facilitates and investigates the use of psychedelic medicines in the treatment of various mental health conditions in collaboration with organizations including USONA, MindMed and NYU. Karina has also helped develop and launch clinical protocols and paradigms for ketamine-assisted therapy. Her future projects include investigating the use of psilocybin in the treatment of prolonged grief disorder and a collaboration with Dr. Richard Schwartz studying the combination of Internal Family Systems therapy and LSD in the treatment of addiction. She has a personal interest in Afro-Syncretic and Latin American Indigenous healing practices involving ayahuasca as spiritual sacrament and has a strong desire to help return sacred medicines to the descendants of those from which it was taken. Karina maintains a small private practice in Los Angeles focused on psychedelic integration and treating codependency, intergenerational and religious trauma in BIPOC individuals.

Sunday, September 11

Navigating Group Dynamics: A Very Brief Introduction

Interpersonal dynamics are often multilayered and involve both explicit content and nonverbal process. These dynamics can play out in productive and challenging ways depending on how they are navigated, the context of the group (e.g., group therapy, community, training cohort), and the members of the group and their individual personalities and cultural influences. This talk provides a brief overview of important relational and group concepts and suggestions on how to address difficult group process while supporting greater group cohesiveness and beloved community. Of note, this talk is largely about community and group interactions outside of the therapeutic or psychedelic ceremonial group experience, but its contents remain relevant to and may be applied to such contexts.

Kile Ortigo, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and CIIS-certified psychedelic psychotherapist (2019 Cohort) at the Center for Existential Exploration in Palo Alto, California, where he offers depth-oriented psychotherapy and integration support. Dr. Ortigo received his PhD from Emory University in 2012 and worked for the National Center for PTSD for several years where he led mental health app and web development and evaluation projects. He currently serves on the advisory board of Psychedelic Support and recently, has published his second book, Beyond the Narrow Life: A Guide for Psychedelic Integration and Existential Exploration, which includes a foreword by Johns Hopkins psychologist, Dr. Bill Richards.

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Cannabis Therapeutics: Advising Patients on Safe and Effective Use

This presentation will cover cannabis constituents, drug interactions, and rules of thumb for cannabis dosing, which may be used to guide patients in safe and effective use of cannabis medications under the law. An introduction to the endocannabinoid system and to the principle phytocannabinoids and terpenes will be provided, and the pharmacokinetics of various cannabis dosage forms will be discussed. References from the scholarly periodical literature related to cannabis pharmacotherapeutics will be included.

Maria Mangini, PhD, FNP, completed her doctorate in Community Health Nursing at University of California, San Francisco, where her research on drugs and drug policy explored the impact of historic LSD use in the lives of middle-aged adults. She was the director of the MSN/FNP program at Holy Names University in Oakland for 20 years. For 25 years, she was in family practice with Frank Lucido MD, and theirs was one of the first to add medical cannabis to the family practice armamentarium. She is co-founder of the Women's Visionary Council, which supports the work of women scholars, artists, healers and visionaries through a series of conferences, workshops and grants. Her interests currently center on the study of death and dying.

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Psilocybin Therapy in Palliative Care: Evaluating the Evidence Through a Pragmatic Lens

This class is focused on the application of psychedelic therapies for the treatment of psychological distress in patients with serious medical illness. The implications and limitations of currently available clinical data will be discussed. Lessons from recent and remote research on psychedelic-assisted group therapies will be presented against the background of the growing interest in eventually using group settings for administering psychedelics in clinical practice. Suggestions will be shared for the design of more pragmatically-oriented clinical studies, with particular consideration paid to generating data that will hopefully inform real world practice with psychedelic medicines in the (near) future.

Brian Anderson, MD, MSc, is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UCSF Weill Institute for the Neurosciences, and an attending in the Psychiatric Emergency Services at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. He is affiliated with the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics and UCSF Neuroscape. His research has included both ethnographic studies of people who use psychedelics in community settings, and clinical trials of psychedelic therapies. In 2018, he conducted a pilot study of psilocybin-assisted group therapy for demoralization in older, long-term AIDS survivor men. His research focuses on safety, clinical implementation, and regulatory issues related to the use of controlled substances.

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Destigmatizing Psychedelic Therapy

Fifty years after prohibition, public impressions of psychedelics have been shaped by “Just Say No” and “Your Brain on Drugs.” Internalizing these messages triggers fear-inducing biases that prevent rationally understanding the possible personal and societal value of psychedelic medicines. Psychedelic therapists have an important role in communicating about and destigmatizing Psychedelic Therapy. Nuanced explanation of the science and potential benefits, as well as the potential risks, is critical in garnering broader public acceptance. Watch his TEDx Talk - The Most Dangerous Four‐Letter Word in prep for discussion in class.

Dick Simon is an entrepreneur, social enterprise philanthropist, and catalyst for change. After 9/11, he cofounded the Peace Action Network (PAN) of YPO, a network of over 29,000 CEOs in more than 135 countries, to convene top business leaders to address conflict resolution on local and global levels. Simon also created the kNOw THEM Initiative to raise awareness about THEM, the most dangerous four-letter word in the English language. He is Chair of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Psychedelic Research Center, founded and chairs the YPO Psychedelic Medicines for Mental Health Group and works with organizations pursuing FDA and EMA clinical trials of psychedelic medicines to treat mental health. In addition, he is creating communities of young researchers and therapists working with these medicines, and projects to shift public perspective and reduce stigmatization related to this work.

Saturday, October 8

The Bristol-Imperial MDMA-for-Alcoholism (BIMA) Study: The World's First Addictions Study using MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy

In this class, Dr. Ben Sessa will describe the rationale and the set-up of the BIMA study, which was held in the UK between 2016 and 2020. Taking a psychological developmental perspective, Dr. Sessa will describe the links between adult mental disorders and addictions and the close links between childhood adversity and abuse and adult pathology. He will further describe the methodology and results of the study and reflect upon how MDMA psychotherapy can be broadened beyond treating only PTSD. Finally, Ben will discuss in more general terms the rising psychedelic renaissance and the future role for MDMA and psychedelics in treating a wide range of mental disorders.

Ben Sessa, MD has been at the forefront of psychedelic research in the UK for over 15 years through his affiliations with Imperial College London. Ben qualified as a medical doctor from UCL in 1997 and went on to specialize in psychiatry. For 30 years he has worked as a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist with young people and adult patients in addictions and trauma-related psychiatry. Ben started studying psychedelics as a junior doctor, and has taken part in research at Bristol University, Cardiff University and Imperial College London with LSD, psilocybin, DMT, ketamine and MDMA - receiving and/or administering all of these compounds in legal research settings. One of the first doctors to develop the field of contemporary psychedelic research in the UK, he is the co-founder and Head of Psychedelic Medicine at Awakn Life Sciences, a biotech company carrying out psychedelic research into addictions and opening twenty psychedelic medical clinics throughout Europe, providing psychedelic psychotherapy – first with ketamine, then with MDMA and psilocybin - for a wide range of psychiatric indications. He was one of the first medical cannabis psychiatric prescribers in the UK. Ben is an approved and registered MDMA, ketamine and psilocybin therapist. He has led research into MDMA-assisted therapy for alcohol use disorder and is published widely in the academic and medical press. Ben is the co-founder and past president of the Breaking Convention conference. He is the author of The Psychedelic Renaissance (2012/2017), the novel To Fathom Hell or Soar Angelic (2015) and Altered States (2021). Ben lives and works in Bristol, UK. 

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Holistic Support for the Voyage: Journeyers, Guides, and Beyond

Therapy-supported psychedelic experiences offer unique and powerful vehicles for the exploration of consciousness. While many experiences generate insight and healing, some can be quite challenging to the physical body, as well as have profound impact in the mental, emotional, spiritual, and other realms of being. The beneficial potential of these experiences may be optimized with intentional attention to parameters such as set and setting, quality and dosage of chosen medicine, working with an experienced guide, and proper preparation, integration, and support from natural medicine and holistic healthcare practices. The holistic paradigm assumes the integration of body, mind, and spirit, and seeks to encourage balance between all aspects of one's being. Working with a holistic healthcare provider and accessing support through nutrition, supplements, herbs, sound healing, and more can help to optimize the psychedelic experiences for journeyers, guides, and beyond.

Natalie Metz, ND, is a licensed naturopathic doctor, herbalist, and faculty member and mentor in the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she teaches courses on holistic health and psychedelic medicines. She serves on the advisory boards for the Limina Foundation, Ten Thousand Waves Transformation Program, and the MAPS Harm Reduction Project. She has a private practice in Santa Fe, NM, where she assists patients in their wellness with the support of plant medicine, diet and lifestyle counseling, ketamine therapies, and the integration of beyond-ordinary life experiences. She is a lifelong student of dance, a lover of art, travel, and all things purple, and truly enjoys sharing her passion for life with the world. Her website is https://drnataliemetz.com.

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Ubungoma Journeying: The Psychedelic Art of Trance and Dance

This class will introduce psychedelic journeying within the context of Ubungoma, the South African traditional healing system. Topics will include: the use of entheogenic plant medicines within Ubungoma and ethical considerations for working with African indigenous knowledge systems; the tradition of indigenous eldership in the set and setting of psychedelic journeying; the importance of sound and movement and embodied space holding from an indigenous perspective; differences between the medical model and indigenous approaches to identifying and supporting transitory states of consciousness.

Gogo Ekhaya is an ancestral medicine healer connected to the traditions of Southern Africa, Sangoma practices. Her experience with mental health crises profoundly shifted into a beautiful journey of growth and initiations that eventually led her to supporting others with spiritual ascension symptoms. Her ancestral calling helped to ignite a life-saving deep remembrance of the ancient ways within her that were forgotten but not lost. She is an author and a mentor with a global practice rooted in the concepts of ubuntu.

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Certificate Graduate Panel: Their Current Work in the Field

We will be joined by several graduates from previous cohorts of the CPTR certificate program, who will share their experiences working with research organizations, businesses, and/or including integration work in their private practice.

Sebastian Beca, MA, AMFT, is originally from Chile and after 18 years working as an engineer, Sebastian transitioned to psychotherapy responding to a deeper calling towards nature, healing and reconnection. He obtained his psychology degree in Santiago, and trained in Gestalt Therapy in the lineage of Claudio Naranjo and in Cannabis-Assisted psychotherapy at the Center for Medicinal Mindfulness. In 2014 he moved to San Francisco and completed his Master’s Degree in Integral Counseling Psychology at CIIS and graduated from the CPTR program in 2021. He works in private practice through Holos Institute specializing in trauma healing. Together with his wife they founded Green Magic Yoga, through which they offer Ganja Yoga, Cannabis Circles and Psychedelic Therapy with Cannabis. They live in the Santa Cruz Mountains with their two cats.

Rajan Grewal, DO, is a board-certified psychiatrist and clinical assistant professor at the University of Arizona Department of Psychiatry. She is a co-investigator on a current clinical trial investigating the use of psilocybin for obsessive-compulsive disorder and has a private practice focused on integrative psychiatry.

Dominique Morisano, PhD, CPsych, is a clinical psychologist, professor, and researcher living in Toronto, Canada (and originating from small town Connecticut). She holds academic appointments at the University of Ottawa and University of Toronto (Adjunct Professor), Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (Collaborator Scientist), and Erasmus University Rotterdam (Visiting Scholar). She has completed extensive training in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies, graduating from the CPTR program in 2019, as well as receiving training from MAPS (MDMA), Compass Pathways (psilocybin), Polaris Insight Center (ketamine), and the Ketamine Training Center. She is a Special Advisor at Field Trip Health, where she was previously Chief Psychologist (USA) and VP of Therapeutic Growth and Innovation (global) for 2 years. She currently runs a trauma/addiction focused private practice in Toronto and NYC and has consulted for CPTR as well as for several companies in the psychedelic therapy space, including Journey Clinical, Fluence and Psychedelics Today. She is a co-founder and Chair of the Board of Psychedelics R2R, which was behind the recent hybrid, non-profit, and submissions-based psychedelics research conference “From Research to Reality: Global Summit on Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Medicine” (R2R2022; Toronto; May 27-29, 2022; fromresearchtoreality.com). She is dedicated to JEDI and social justice and the study/use of psychedelic-assisted therapies for both personal growth and addressing human suffering. Her website is drmorisano.com.

Sunday, October 9

The Art of Guiding High-Dose Psilocybin Sessions: Reenactments and Discussion

This panel consists of Mary Cosimano, MSW, Bill Richards, PhD, and Brian Richards, PsyD. They will discuss vignettes that they enacted and recorded, based on experiences they have witnessed as guides in psilocybin-assisted treatment sessions. These vignettes are composed of different scenarios that illustrate managing fear, paranoia and other forms of distress, as well as joy and exaltation. There is an emphasis on presence, empathy, and firm support when required. During these sessions, we will view these scenes in small clusters and then discuss with one another and the panel members the issues, principles and techniques portrayed.

Please see above for  Mary Cosimano’s, Dr. Brian Richards, and  Dr. Bill Richards’ bio.

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Honoring African Traditional Religious Practices in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies with Black Clients

In this class, Courtney will speak to the importance of including major aspects of African Traditional Religious Practices (ATRs) in psychedelic work with Black clients. Courtney will advise students on how to invite Black clients to bring in aspects of the cultural and spiritual practices when undergoing altered states of consciousness. Major themes such as ancestor veneration, spirit possession, implicit bias, in/appropriate intervention, full informed consent, and music will be addressed.

Courtney Watson, MS, MEd, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Sex therapist. She is the owner of Doorway Therapeutic Services, a group therapy practice in Oakland, CA focused on addressing the mental health needs of Black Indigenous People of Color, Queer folks, Trans, Gender Non-conforming, Non-binary and Two Spirit individuals. Courtney has followed the direction of her ancestors to incorporate psychedelic assisted therapy into her offerings for folks with multiple marginalized identities and acknowledges the importance of Black and Queer providers offering these services. Courtney spent most of 2019 training with the California Institute of Integral Studies' Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research to provide psychedelic-assisted therapy. She is deeply interested in the impact of psychedelic medicines on folks with marginalized identities as well as how they can assist with the decolonization process for BIPOC. She believes this field is not yet ready to address the unique needs of Communities of Color and is prepared and enthusiastic about bridging the gap. She is currently preparing to be one of the few QTPOC providers offering Ketamine Assisted Therapy in 2021 in the Bay Area by completing additional Ketamine training at the end of 2020. She is also hoping to offer other medicines as they become FDA approved. 

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Therapeutic Challenges of the Global Majority: Insights Through Lived Experience

Structural racism and a culture of mistrust and stigma create significant barriers to mental health care for communities of color. This is without psychedelics. We are navigating a new terrain while we have not fully mastered the old. In doing so, we add layers of complexity to an already complex endeavor – treating the communities that need it the most. As a psychiatric nurse practitioner working with communities of high need, a benefactor of an alternative to incarceration, a patient of the mental health system, and a trainee of psychedelic harm reduction, Kwasi shares his experiences that highlight the challenges we face while offering insights and posing questions that support the kind of care we wish to provide.

Kwasi Adusei, DNP, PMHNP-BC, is a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner at Journey Clinical and co-founder of the Psychedelic Society of Western New York, out of which he developed a grassroots psychedelic harm reduction program. Kwasi is a trainee of the MAPS sponsored MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD and was part of the first ever therapists of color cohort. As an educator and community organizer, he is informed by his experience with the war on drugs and community mental health, both as a patient and a clinician. He serves on the boards of Reconsider, the Source Research Foundation, PRATI and was on the Diversity Working Group for MAPS.

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Ketamine: Paradigms of Treatment and Current Controversies

Ketamine is a unique medicine with anesthetic, dissociative, and psychedelic properties. In recent years, ketamine has been appreciated for its rapid-acting anti-depressant, anti-obsessional, and anti-suicidal properties. There is a lot of confusion about how to use this tool. In this talk, Dr. Bennett will present three different paradigms for ketamine treatment in a legal context: biochemical/medical, relational/psychotherapeutic model, and shamanic/psychedelic. She will highlight the advantages and drawbacks for each approach. Next, she will talk about the clinical indications for legal ketamine treatment, including the established and investigational uses, according to the most current research literature. Finally, Dr. Bennett will discuss the legal status of ketamine with respect to the various regulatory agencies (DEA, FDA, State Boards). If there is time, Dr. Bennett will talk about some of the current controversies in this burgeoning field.

Raquel Bennett, Psy.D., is a psychologist and ketamine specialist from Berkeley, California. She primarily works with people who are living with severe depression, bipolar disorder, and/or suicidal ideation. Dr. Bennett is fascinated by the antidepressant and anti-obsessional properties of ketamine, and has been studying them since 2002. She also has a long-standing interest in the psychedelic and mystical properties of ketamine, and the potential for this medicine to be used for spiritual exploration in the context of psychotherapy. In addition, Dr. Bennett is the founder of KRIYA Institute and KRIYA Conference, which are both devoted to the use of ketamine in psychiatry and psychotherapy. She has given hundreds of lectures and trained thousands of clinicians worldwide on the use of ketamine in clinical settings. You can learn more about her work at: www.kriyainstitute.com.

Thursday, October 27

Ethical Behavior of Practitioners Conducting Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Enactments/Role-Plays of Ethics Issues

Thursday's didactic course is an in-depth discussion of ethical guidelines for the field of psychedelic medicines. We will look with a fine lens at several current sets of guidelines and discussions of ethical behavior in this discipline. Then we will participate in a discussion of the values and attitudes of the ethical psychedelic therapist vs. signs and signals of a practitioner who may be out of alignment with ethical principles of behavior. Our training program teachers have all invoked various principles of ethical professional practice, and this course will pull together consensus thinking on the topic, as well as knotty issues without consensus to date. Trainees will be asked to grapple with the implications of these principles for their own clinical practices in this specialty.

On Friday, we will co-create a set of role-plays and enactments of ethical scenarios that may challenge us professionally and personally as the field unfolds and as we are creating clinics to serve our communities with psychedelic-assisted therapy. Several scenarios will be enacted via role-play. An emphasis for Friday will be on how to create a community that develops the safety needed for true transparency, accountability, and repair processes. Our professions have not been solid in developing such peer support and peer review ethics communities that function well. Will we improve on this situation in our particular field? Answer: we must.

Please see above for Dr. Janis Phelps’ bio.

Friday, October 28

Mental Imagery Procedures in Psychedelic Therapy
This presentation will explore ways of understanding and working constructively with spontaneously-evoked mental imagery during preparatory, substance-assisted and integrative sessions during psychedelic psychotherapy, through lecture and video examples.   Though eclectic, it will focus on the system of Guided Affective Imagery (GAI) developed by Hanscarl Leuner.

Please see above for Dr. Bill Richards’ bio.

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Foundational Discoveries and the Future of Ethnobotany: Psychedelic Medicine and Beyond

While there is growing evidence that psychoactive plants have been used by humans for sacred and medicinal purposes for millennia, the modern field of therapeutic psychedelics has its origins over a century ago in the interdisciplinary work of botanists, mycologists, natural product chemists, and medical practitioners. But where did these psychedelic molecules come from and what are they? And through what mechanisms do they modulate brain plasticity? In this class we will review key contributions and the legacy of the legendary Harvard Professor of Botany Dr. Richard Evans Schultes who, along with other pioneering interdisciplinary scholars, began systematically ‘mapping the mind’ with psychoactive plants and inspired a generation to document traditional knowledge, to help protect indigenous cultures, brought attention to the importance of conserving biodiversity. These discoveries laid the foundation for the field of ethnobotany as it is now known. More than half a century later these ethnopharmacological discoveries have led to the development of probes of the mechanisms of brain plasticity and as potential medicines currently under investigation for the treatment, and ideally prevention, of a range of mental health issues that society faces. Looking toward the future of psychedelic medicine we will also review technologies emerging out of the fields of human stem cell biology, chemical neuroscience, and genomics that are allowing the detailed characterization of the mechanism of action of psychedelic molecules in the context of human neurobiology. These same technologies also offer the potential for the discovery of next-generation psychedelic medicines through leveraging ethnobotanical knowledge and the principles of precision medicine.

Stephen J. Haggarty, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, an Associate Neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Director of the MGH Chemical Neurobiology Laboratory within the Center for Genomic Medicine and Scientific Director of Neurobiology for the MGH Center for Neuroscience of Psychedelics. Dr. Haggarty is also a Senior Associate Member of the Broad Institute, an Affiliate Faculty Member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and he was named the Stuart & Suzanne Steele MGH Research Scholar in 2017. With a background in the discovery and characterization of natural products and natural product-inspired molecules, Dr. Haggarty’s research program operates at the interface of psychiatry and neurology with a focus on dissecting the role of neuroplasticity and resiliency in health and disease. A major emphasis of his research group is the use of reprogramming technology to create patient-specific, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) as ex vivo models that provide powerful new avenues for studies of neuroplasticity, to investigate the mechanism of action of existing psychedelics, and in the future to potentially discover next-generation agents with improved efficacy to advance the field of precision medicine.

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A Conversation with Dr. Rick Doblin, MAPS Founder and Executive Director

Dr. Doblin will facilitate a conversation about what inspired him to found MAPS in 1986, the current state of MAPS drug development plan for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, the $50 million per year for three years (total $150 million) Bridge to Sustainability plan, the rise of for-profit psychedelic companies, and the future of psychedelic-assisted therapy. We will discuss the results from Phase 3 studies of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD, the path to approvals by the FDA and European Medicines Agency (EMA), and the $12.9 million grant from the State of Michigan for a study of medical marijuana to treat symptoms of PTSD. We will conclude with a discussion about the expansion of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy research across the world, regulation of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy post-approval and what that would mean for therapists, the plan to build a network of in-patient psychedelic clinic treatment centers, and how the MAPS Zendo Project and harm reduction can help prepare for a post-prohibition world.

Rick Doblin, PhD, is 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 catalyze 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 empty rooms from three children who have all left the nest.

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Somatic Foundations for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy: Focus on Embodied Inquiry, Movement and Touch

This class seeks to review the essentials of an embodiment-oriented trauma-specific approach in psychedelic-assisted therapy, and provide instruction and practice in essential skills within this orientation: embodied inquiry, and how to work skillfully, ethically and safely with movement and touch in therapy. We will discuss when and how to employ these across the arc of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, from preparation, psychedelic-assisted sessions, to integration. This class provides a high-level review of key concepts (completion of pre-readings is essential) with an emphasis on skill-based demonstrations and opportunities for practice in breakout groups, followed by large group reflections and Q&A.

Devon Christie, MD, CCFP, RTC, is a family physician and certified Functional Medicine provider with a focused practice in chronic pain management and a clinical instructor with the UBC Department of Medicine. Devon is also a Registered Therapeutic Counselor and certified Relational Somatic Therapist, as well as a certified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher and Kundalini Yoga teacher with over 20 years’ personal experience in cultivating mindfulness and yogic practices. Devon is also a trained MDMA therapist with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and has training and experience in Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy. Devon has also apprenticed with Dr. Gabor Maté over 3 intensive retreats, assisting in preparation and integration of participants’ plant medicine experiences. Devon currently serves as Medical Director with Numinus Wellness Inc. a Canadian publicly listed company. She is passionate about educating future psychedelic therapists in somatic trauma-informed skillsets and relational nuances within this context. Devon is devoted to helping people uncover the root causes that lead to illness, connect with the wisdom and innate healing intelligence of their body-mind, and become active participants in their own wellbeing.

Saturday, October 29

Overview of Medicinal Chemistry of Psychedelics and Entactogens

This talk will give a historical background of psychedelics and their origins, how LSD was discovered, and its significance to neuroscience research. It will then address the brain receptor activated by LSD and how receptor signaling occurs. Finally, there will be a discussion of preclinical laboratory methods for testing LSD and its analogues, and a consideration of some analogues of LSD and what they revealed about receptor interactions.

David E. Nichols, PhD is currently an Adjunct Professor of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Previously he held the Robert C. and Charlotte P. Anderson Distinguished Chair in Pharmacology and in addition was a Distinguished Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the Purdue University College of Pharmacy, where he taught both professional undergraduate as well as graduate classes. He also was an Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Indiana University School of Medicine and taught in the medical curriculum. He received his B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of Cincinnati in 1969, and the PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Iowa in 1973, following which he did postdoctoral work in pharmacology at the University of Iowa, College of Medicine. He joined Purdue University in 1974 where he remained until his retirement from Purdue in June 2012. He has published more than 300 scientific articles, book chapters, and monographs. In 1993 he founded the Heffter Research Institute, which has supported and funded clinical research with psilocybin and led the so-called “renaissance in psychedelic research.”

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How can the Role of Black Churches Inform Black Psychedelic Communities and Integration Circles?

In this class, Mary will share her personal journey in the 2019 CIIS Psychedelic Certificate which motivated her to explore ancestral knowledge and healing practices within the Black community. Mary wrote her final paper reflecting on the role and impact of Black churches in American society and identified five main tenets that may inform Black psychedelic communities and integration spaces. Additionally, she will connect her research to her present-day experiences as a participant in a Black-led and Black-organized plant medicine community.

Mary Sanders, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and social justice advocate exploring transgenerational trauma with BIPOC, 2SLGBTQIA+, veterans, immigrants, refugees, and foster youth. Certified in trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), Mary is also a somatic experiencing psychotherapist in training. Mary completed the CIIS CPTR program and trained with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies as well as the Ketamine Training Center. As a founding board member of the People of Color Psychedelic Collective, she works toward collective healing and justice in the context of psychedelics. Mary works in private practice at EMPATH Center and as a clinical social worker at the Veteran Affairs homeless programs in San Francisco. 

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A Psychedelic Assisted Therapeutic Model Informed by the West African Spiritual Tradition of Ifa

This presentation will give a very basic grounding in the Ifa/Orisa spiritual tradition and discuss some of the key elements that the tradition has to say about altered states of consciousness. The presenter will also review a therapeutic model that incorporates spiritual technologies within the Ifa tradition with western psychological praxis to illustrate an example of a culturally responsive approach of working with plant medicine and beyond, in and with communities of color. 

Urana Jackson, LMFT (she/her) is a space holder, healing justice practitioner, and psychotherapist. She has worked in community-based mental health for over 20 years, and most recently oversaw the mental health programming for middle schools in Oakland Unified School District. She was an instructor for a course on restorative justice for 18 years at UC Berkeley School of Law’s summer legal fellowship program. Urana is the published author of Girls Rising (Parallax Press, 2015) and the creator of “Ancestor’s Keeper,” a curriculum for adolescent youth around racial trauma and healing.  She currently has a private practice in Oakland CA. in which she works predominantly with women and people of color around issues of trauma and grief. Urana was initiated in the Ifa / Lucumi spiritual tradition in 2006 and her interest lies in integrating various western therapeutic modalities with spiritual technologies. She is a devotee of Mother Earth and much of Urana’s time is spent in Her presence: hiking, making art, surfing and roller skating. Urana is a daughter, partner, bonus mom and loyal servant to two Siamese cats. 

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Understanding the Lasting Impact of Patriarchy, Colonialism, and Ageism on the Psychedelic Landscape

Focusing a decolonized lens on the work of Brian Muraresku and others, Ayize Jama-Everett will explore some ancient roots of European entheogenic practices to demonstrate how the suppression of those female-led oral traditions around plants was exported around the world and continues to marginalize some of the greatest plant healers of our time. Far from being an academic exercise, these trends continue to affect the modern psychedelic movement to its detriment. By giving voice to the “grey women,” queer folks, and BIPOC folks, we return to the source of entheogenic practices in the West, and indeed around the world, and open the field of psychedelics as a genuinely diverse landscape.

Ayize Jama-Everett, MDiv, MA, MFA, holds three Master’s degrees: Divinity, Psychology, and in Fine Arts, Writing. He blends these degrees in all his work, often identifying as a guerilla theologian, a community-based therapist, and an afro-futurist in the same breath.  He has taught at Starr King School for the Ministry, California College of the Arts, The University of California, Riverside, and a host of private high schools for over twenty years.  His expertise includes working with adolescents, the history of substance use in the United States, the history of sacred plant medicines in the Maghreb, the religious roots of political violence from Ireland to the Middle east, educational arts pedagogy, and afro-futurism.  He’s published three novels and one graphic novel. His shorter works can be found in the LA Review of Books, The Believer, and Racebaitr. He is a board member of the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, leading their initiative to look at the role of psychedelics in the mental health of people of color and poor people.

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Nuts and Bolts of a Sustainable and Scalable Psychedelic Medicine Practice

In this class, Brian Richards will present a brief intensive on emergent real-world challenges to creating a psychedelic medicine practice. He will share practical approaches to support sustainability and scalability in clinical settings. He will discuss considerations including medicine(s), sample intake assessments, normal dosage levels, route of administration, and considerations in set and setting. Further, this class will address the topics of affordability, accessibility, quality of care, CPT codes, staffing, risk management, and the use of medical help for emergencies. 

Please see above for Dr. Brian Richards’ bio.

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Death in Psychedelic Experiences and Personal Death Awareness

Death is a universal human experience. For many, death is a mystery and an unknown. For this reason, there is often a fear of dying that can result in an avoidance of addressing death. In psychedelic experiences, people sometimes experience their own death, the death of others, or have encounters with those who have died. The death of the ego, or ego-dissolution, is often a key phenomenological feature in the psychedelic experience. This workshop is designed to help you to have a better understanding of your feelings around death by raising your personal death awareness. It may aid in making you more comfortable with your own death and those of others. As a psychedelic guide, being more aware of your own beliefs and feelings around death may result in being better prepared to assist others that might encounter such experiences.

The Healing Presence of Joy

In this short class, Mary will share teachings and exercises that evoke joy and play. 

Please see above for Mary Cosimano’s bio.

Sunday, October 30

Queer Aspects of Psychedelic Experience

This presentation will explore the dimension of gender-diverse people and sexual orientation in the context of psychedelics. Historically, psychedelics have been used by LGBTQA+ communities as a tool for self-therapy and a creative source among cultural outcastes. We will look at how queer people have used psychedelics to build community and explore identity, as well as examine a dark period when psychedelics were used to treat homosexuality (“conversion therapy”) in clinics internationally, sometimes in aversive therapy scenarios. We will discuss the ways psychedelic therapy can be made more accessible to gender and sexually-diverse people, and the ways that queer people might be accommodated and treated with more understanding. The presentation will familiarize attendees with the particular needs of the queer population in regard to treatment and the continuing need for research on this population. It will also look at the continuing struggle to have aspects of gender and orientation respected in clinical contexts with psychedelics, and the ways psychedelics can help resolve some of the trauma of being queer in a homophobic society. Further, we will look at how psychedelics may be of use in helping gay, lesbian, and transgender people accept themselves in face of cultural resistance and judgment, and thus live happier, more fulfilling lives. 

Clancy Cavnar, Psy.D., has a doctorate in clinical psychology from John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, CA. She currently works in private practice in San Francisco, and is Co-Founder and a member of the Board of Directors of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines. She is also a research associate of the Interdisciplinary Group for Psychoactive Studies (NEIP). She combines an eclectic array of interests and activities as clinical psychologist, artist, and researcher. She has a master of fine arts in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute, a master’s in counseling from San Francisco State University, and she completed the Certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy program in 2017 at CIIS. She is author and co-author of articles in several peer-reviewed journals and co-editor, with Beatriz Caiuby Labate, of ten books. For more information see: http://www.drclancycavnar.com.

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A Conversation on Honoring the Indigenous Roots of the Psychedelic Movement

In this flipped class discussion of her talk, “Honoring the Indigenous Roots of the Psychedelic Movement,” Bia will further address sacred plant medicines and psychedelic science, with particular focus on ayahuasca shamanism and what therapists can learn from these practices. In discussion with the class, Bia will continue to explore possibilities for respectful dialogue and reciprocity with Indigenous traditions as well as expand on Chacruna’s projects and mission to bridge plant medicines and psychedelic science. Trainees are encouraged to bring questions regarding the talk and the required textbook, Psychedelic Justice, to the discussion.

Dr. Beatriz Caiuby Labate (Bia Labate), Ph.D. is a queer Brazilian anthropologist based in San Francisco. She has a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. Her main areas of interest are the study of plant medicines, drug policy, shamanism, ritual, religion, and social justice. She is Executive Director of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines ( http://chacruna.net, https://chacruna-iri.org, https://chacruna-la.org) and serves as Public Education and Culture Specialist at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). She is also Adjunct Faculty at the East-West Psychology Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and Visiting Scholar at Naropa University’s Center for Psychedelic Studies. Additionally, she is Diversity and Inclusion Chair at Veterans of War, member of the Oregon Psilocybin Advisory Board’s Research Subcommittee, and Advisor at the Synthesis Institute and at InnerTrek. Dr. Labate is a co-founder of the Interdisciplinary Group for Psychoactive Studies (NEIP) in Brazil and editor of its site since. She is author, co-author, and co-editor of twenty-five books, two special-edition journals, and several peer-reviewed articles ( https://bialabate.net).