Psychedelic Psychotherapy Forum 2020

Event Summary

The 5th Psychedelic Psychotherapy Forum is themed Vision & Visionaries. The intention for the 2020 Psychedelic Psychotherapy Forum is to co-create spaces for deep listening, dialogue, learning, relationship building and visioning.

This conversation is 3 days of individual presentations and interactive panel discussions from 38 local and international speakers, covering a wide range of culturally relevant and important topics in the psychedelic and plant medicine space, and in the world at large today.

2020 Program Highlights

Decolonizing The Psychedelic Renaissance
Keynote Address by Claudia J. Ford, PhD

Bridging Indigenous Wisdom and Western Psychotherapy
Françoise Bourzat, MA

Psycholytic Therapy in Europe
Torsten Passie, MD

Psychedelics for Racial Trauma
Monnica Williams, PhD

Treating Addictions with Psychedelic Plants
Anja Loizaga-Velder, PhD

Where is the “Medicine?”
Duncan Grady, D Min, MS

Ketamine for Depression and Spiritual Exploration
Raquel Bennett, PhD

Vision for the Future of Psychedelic Psychotherapy
Stan Grof, MD; Brigitte Grof; Torsten Passie, MD; Anja Loizaga-Velder, PhD
Françoise Bourzat, MA, Monnica Williams, PhD

Psychedelics as Agents of Nature Connection
Sam Gandy, PhD

101 Red Flags: Exploring Ethical Breaches in Therapy
Pamela Kryskow, MD, and Kate Browning, RN

Relational Dosing: Couples Therapy
Susan McBride, RN, MTS, RSW, & Mark Cornfield, MD, FRCPC

Following a Path with Heart: Medicine Within
Jazmin Pirozek, MSc

Navigating Climate and Ecological Crisis with Psychedelics
Claudia Ford, PhD; Sam Gandy, PhD; Eleonora Molnar, MA

Legalization, Medicalization and/versus Decriminalization of psychedelic and plant medicines
Bruce Tobin, PhD; Salimeh Tabrizi, M. Ed; Trevor Millar

ABOUT OUR PRESENTERS

	Stanislav Grof, MD, is a psychiatrist with more than sixty years of experience in research of holotropic states of consciousness, a large and important subgroup of non-ordinary states that have healing, transformative, heuristic, and evolutionary potential. In the past, he was Principal Investigator in a psychedelic research program at the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, and Scholar-in-Residence at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA. Currently, he is Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco, CA. A winner of prestigious awards, Stan has written over 150 published articles in professional journals, as well as many well-known books in the field including LSD Psychotherapy; Psychology of the Future; When the Impossible Happens; and Spiritual Emergency (which he co-authored with the late Christina Grof). Since April 2016, Stan has been happily married to Brigitte Grof. They live together in Germany and California and travel the inner and outer worlds in tandem, conducting seminars, trainings, and Holotropic Breathwork workshops worldwide. In August 2019 his life’s work encyclopedia The Way of the Psychonaut was published and the documentary film about his life and work “The Way of the Psychonaut: Stanislav’s Journey of Consciousness” is being released this year.
	Claudia J. Ford, PhD has had a career in international development and women’s health spanning three decades and all continents. Claudia is a midwife and ethnobotanist, who studies traditional ecological knowledge, women’s reproductive health, and sustainable agriculture. Dr. Ford is on faculty at State University of New York, Potsdam, where she teaches Environmental Studies, Sustainability, Ethnobotany, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Environmental Literature, and Environmental Justice. Claudia serves on the boards of The Biodynamic Association, promoting spiritual agriculture and a sacred relationship with land; and the Soul Fire Farm Institute, committed to ending racism and injustice in the food system. Claudia is also a writer, poet, and visual artist; and a single mother who has shared the delights and adventures of her global travel with her four children.
	Francoise Bourzat holds a MA in Somatic Psychology from New College of California (San Francisco, 1990). She is a certified Hakomi Therapist (1991). She is an adjunct faculty in the East West Psychology Program at CIIS. Since 1987, Francoise has apprenticed with shamans and healers in the U.S. and Mexico. In the last 20 years, she has traveled with groups to Mexico, incorporating her counseling practice experience with her knowledge of expanded states of consciousness where she partners with Mazatec healers in Sacred Mushrooms ceremonies. She lectures internationally and she leads trainings in the U.S, France, Lebanon and Israel. Her book Consciousness Medicine (North Atlantic Books) showcases her decade long knowledge which bridges indigenous practices and Western psychology.
	Torsten Passie MD, PhD is Professor of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Hannover Medical School (Germany) and Visiting Scientist at Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main (Germany). He studied philosophy, sociology (MA) at Leibniz-University, Hannover and medicine at Hannover Medical School. He worked at the Psychiatric University Clinic in Zürich (Switzerland) and with Professor Hanscarl Leuner (Göttingen), the leading European authority on hallucinogens and psycholytic therapy. From 1998 to 2010 he was a scientist and psychiatrist at Hannover Medical school (Germany) where he researched the addictions and the psychophysiology of altered states of consciousness and their healing potential, including clinical research with hallucinogenic drugs. He is a board member of the Swiss Physicians Society for Psycholytic Therapy and was Visiting Professor at the Harvard Medical School in Boston during the years 2012-2015 . He is a therapist in the Phase 3 studies for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD in Europe. More than 50 of his Publications have appeared in high-ranking scientific journals. His books include The Pharmacology of LSD (2010), Healing with Entactogens (2012) and The Science of Microdosing Psychedelics (2019).
	Monnica T. Williams, PhD is a board-certified licensed clinical psychologist and Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa, in the School of Psychology, where she is the Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Disparities. She is also the Clinical Director of the Behavioral Wellness Clinic in Connecticut, where she provides supervision and training to clinicians for empirically-supported treatments. Current projects include the assessment of race-based trauma, unacceptable thoughts in OCD, improving cultural competence in the delivery of mental health care services, and interventions to reduce racism. This includes her work as a PI in a multisite study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. She also gives diversity trainings nationally for clinical psychology programs, scientific conferences, and community organizations. Dr. Williams is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA), having served as the diversity delegate from Kentucky for the APA State Leadership Conference for two consecutive years. She has served as the African American SIG leader for Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), and she serves as an associate editor of The Behavior Therapist and New Ideas in Psychology. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the International OCD Foundation, and co-founded their Diversity Council. Her work has been featured in several major media outlets, including NPR, Huffington Post, and the New York Times.
	Raquel Bennett, Psy.D. is a psychologist and ketamine specialist from Berkeley, CA. She primarily works with people who are living with severe depression, bipolar disorder, and/or suicidal ideation. She is fascinated by the antidepressant properties of ketamine, and has been studying this 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. Dr. Bennett is the founder of KRIYA Institute and the organizer of KRIYA Conference, which is an annual and international event devoted to the uses of ketamine in psychiatry and psychotherapy. You can learn more about her work at www.kriyainstitute.com
	Sam Gandy has a PhD in ecological science from the University of Aberdeen and an MRes in entomology from Imperial College London. He has a lifelong interest in nature and wildlife and has been fortunate enough to conduct field research in various parts of the world including the UK, Kefalonia, Almeria, Texas, the Peruvian Amazon, Vietnam and Ethiopia. He also has experience of working in the psychedelic field, as past scientific assistant to the director of the Beckley Foundation, and currently as a collaborator with the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London. Sam has a particular research interest in the intersection of two of his big passions…nature and psychedelics…and the potential of psychedelics to reconnect our increasingly disconnected species to the natural world, for the betterment of humanity and the biosphere at large.
	Heather Hargraves, MA, is a Certified Neuromeditation Instructor, trauma therapist and researcher in London, Ontario, Canada. Heather specializes in the use of neuro and biofeedback technologies to support a broad range of neurologically and/or psychologically traumatized clients within her clinical practice. Heather’s research interests investigate the neurological underpinnings of various states of consciousness, including dissociation, meditation, psychedelics and various polyphasic states of consciousness, associated with shamanic practices. Her masters research focused on the therapeutic induction of altered states of consciousness, based on research findings related to psilocybin (i.e., magic mushrooms). Prior to her training as a neurofeedback therapist Heather worked as a yoga and meditation instructor, as well as a reflexologist and Thai massage therapist. It was her personal experience with these modalities that inspired her to pursue further study as a therapist, with a focus toward understanding the neurological underpinnings of these mind/body therapies. Currently, Heather is an advocate for the interface of neurofeedback modalities with psychedelic therapies. With an emphasis on the preparation and integration periods that bookend psychedelic therapies, once they are legalized.
	Terence Ching is a US-based Chinese Singaporean currently completing his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Connecticut (UConn). As a function of his clinical and research training, as well as his personal lived experiences, Terence has academic and clinical interests in the intersections between obsessive-compulsive and related disorders; anxiety disorders; stress, trauma, and posttraumatic stress disorder; cultural diversity based in race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, etc.; and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Terence has also assumed a co-therapist role in a prior MAPS-sponsored trial of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, in which he infused the research process with culturally-informed recruitment and assessment procedures. Terence is currently working on his doctoral dissertation, with an emphasis on examining possible differences in efficacy of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD between White participants and participants of color across MAPS-sponsored study sites. Terence will also supplement his dissertation scope with a mixed-methods case study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in a participant of color, with the goal of uncovering novel mechanisms of therapeutic change via qualitative analysis.

 
The above list represents just SOME of our amazing speakers!
For the FULL event program and schedule, CLICK HERE

For details on post-forum workshops facilitated by Grof Legacy Training – Canada, and Claudia Ford, PhD, respectively CLICK HERE