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PODCAST

My Psychedelic Roots

My Psychedelic Roots shares stories from people from a broad swath of lived experience to explore their psychedelic beginnings, or roots: what motivated them to start using psychedelics, what those early experiences were like, and how those roots have impacted their understanding of themselves and the world around them. My goal in these conversations is to give voice to the unique, transpersonal and human side of psychedelics and non-ordinary states of consciousness--- allowing guests to talk about

society & culture personal journals

All Episodes

00:53:14

Ep28: Pam Kryskow on learning to ground in...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2026/04/15

Dr. Pamela Kryskow is a medical doctor, advocate, practitioner and life-loving human. She serves as the medical lead of the non-profit “Roots To Thrive” Psychedelic Assisted Therapy Program in BC, volunteers as a founding board member of the Psychedelic Association of Canada, and serves as the Medical Chair of the Vancouver Island University Post Graduate Certificate in Psychedelic Medicine Assisted Therapy. Prior to studying to become a doctor, she was a City of Coquitlam Firefighter for 8 years

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00:39:28

Ep27: Bradford Martins on his feral childhood, and...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2026/04/03

Bradford Martins, MD, PhD is a board-certified addiction psychiatrist based at a psychiatric clinic in New Haven, Connecticut where he supports folks navigating substance use disorders, including through implementing community-based models for the prevention and treatment of substance use disorders. Dr. Martins is also an Assistant Professor Adjunct at Yale University conducting research in both the Bassir Nia Lab to study the therapeutic potential of dimethyltryptamine (DMT) for alcohol use

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00:40:53

Ep26: Connection and community in childhood, a...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2026/03/19

John Gilchrist is Director of Communications at TheraPsil, a Canadian not-for-profit working for psychedelic access for folks at end of life and other issues about accessibility, regulation and choice in the psychedelic space. In our conversation, we talk about his own personal psychedelic roots: his connection to community, family and lived experience, and a first experience that contained both the light and the shadow of psychedelic trips in a lot of ways. This conversation with John is being

en-ca

00:34:31

Ep25: Experiencing a ‘life quake’, finding relief...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2026/03/06

Trigger Warning: discussions of suicidalityKaren Pascal was born and raised in Ottawa, Canada, and spent much of her childhood outdoors, birdwatching and camping with her family—feeling playful, carefree, and deeply connected to the natural world. This was an anchoring Karen lost touch with as life unfolded, and as she grew older, she struggled with anxiety and depression. After exploring many different therapeutic approaches without lasting relief, it wasn’t until her marriage unexpectedly ended

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00:52:05

EP24: A grounded childhood, connecting with the past...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2026/02/23

Erika Dyck is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan. Her work focuses on 20th century medical history, including the history of psychedelics, psychiatry, eugenics and population control. Erika grew up not far from the Weyburn, Saskatchewan, the birthplace of the word ‘psychedelic’, and where a lot of psychedelic research was happening in Canada in the early days. And yet, Erika’s roots were very much outside of that world. In our conversation, we wend our way

en-ca

00:41:23

Ep23: Fear and bravery, discovering the sacred and...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2026/02/04

Anthony di Virgilio is a father, a registered psychotherapist and a student of sacred plant teachers. He is deeply interested in the connection between mental and emotional health, relational dynamics, and spirituality - and he integrates these perspectives into his therapeutic work, and we hear in our conversation together, he also integrates these into his own work with psychedelic medicines. Anthony also studies vitalist herbalism, Indigenous healing modalities, and principles of Traditional

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00:45:45

Ep22: A gregarious childhood, a dark night of the...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2026/01/21

Trigger Warning: discussions of suicidalityRobert Décarie is a local certified Holotropic Breathwork facilitator, a former counselor and wildlife management specialist, and a delightful human being. As we explore in our conversation together, after having a gregarious but dissociated childhood in Montreal and experiencing a dark night of the soul in his early twenties, he pivoted to study environmental sciences (M.Sc.) and had a 25-year career in wildlife management. In the mid-2000s, he readjusted

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00:52:07

Ep21: Experiencing the beginnings of Western...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2026/01/01

Trigger Warning: discussions of suicidalityDr. Paul Grof is a Canadian research psychiatrist and clinician who has been involved in psychedelic and transpersonal work for over six decades. He was a professor at several Canadian and European universities until recently retiring from the University of Toronto in 2022, and served as an Expert at the World Health Organization from 1985 to 2000, where he chaired the Committee on Psychotropic Substances. It was a pleasure to get to sit down with Paul to

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00:35:27

Ep20: Confusion and isolation in childhood, finding...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/12/15

Ruth Webster is a retired library scientist, a fellow New Brunswicker, and someone with a lifelong curiosity about connection with self and the world around them. After a complex childhood growing up in the 1950s and 60s and first encountering psychedelics as a teenager and saying ‘no’, her curiosity about psychedelics was not piqued again until 2015 when she started a Holotropic Breathwork training course. Through a number of curious coincidences, she found her way to her first psychedelic

en-ca

00:39:55

Ep19: Childhood innocence, receiving a warm welcome...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/12/01

Matt Jaworski was born into a mixed family in the Ottawa suburbs, and was exposed to many things that seemed surreal to him from an early age. Because of this, he has spent much of his life seeking out answers to why things are the way they are, and at the same time learning to let go and be led when the path to follow is clear. In our conversation, we talk about his childhood and his very trusting nature as a kid, what he learned about the world and himself growing up with a differently-abled young

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00:39:11

Ep18: Years of disconnection from self and others,...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/11/15

Lucia Rios Maia da Silva is a queer Brazilian psychotherapist whose life and research are guided by a deep connection to nature and plant medicines. In our conversation together, we explore their childhood raised by two pastors, and the disconnection that they experienced as they were forced to try to ‘correct’ their queerness, and the new communities and spiritualities they built as they learned to live in their truth. After coming out in Brazil, Lucia moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in 2019

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00:51:50

A child of revolution, reclaiming safety through MDMA...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/11/01

Trigger Warning: discussions of suicide and suicidalityPedram Dara is an Iranian-born refugee to Canada and a former MDMA-assisted therapy clinical trial participant who has turned his experiences into founding and directing the Psychedelic Lived Experiences initiative, a patient-led movement advancing lived experience expertise in psychedelic research, treatment, and policy. In our conversation together, we talk about how his current advocacy work is built off of his early experiences as a child

en-ca

00:38:11

Wanting to support others, questioning what she...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/10/15

Dr. Monnica T. Williams is a board-certified licensed clinical psychologist and 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 Clinics in Connecticut and Ottawa, where she provides supervision and training to clinicians for empirically-supported treatments. In our conversation together, we sit down outside of the professional context and talk a bit

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00:33:13

Questioning as an act of devotion, and experiencing...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/10/01

Jaz Cadoch is an Amazigh Moroccan Jewish woman dedicated to rebuilding a relationship with her lineage, and a cultural and medical anthropologist who has spent the past nine years studying the integration of psychedelic medicines into modern Western policy, medicine, and culture. Jaz also serves as a co-steward of the Global Psychedelic Society, a role which is deeply connected to her psychedelic roots, in which she experienced loneliness and disconnection in childhood, eventually finding solace and

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00:32:12

Feeling othered in childhood, seeking...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/09/20

Myriah MacIntyre is a Ph.D. candidate studying clinical psychology at the University of Ottawa, focusing her research on the impact of traditional medicines and psychedelics on healing racial trauma. In our conversation, Myriah shares about her own lived experience as a Black Caribbean-Indigenous lesbian woman, and how her identities have intersected with her research choices, but also with her own personal psychedelic unfolding. Growing up in a small Canadian city and attending a Lutheran private

en-ca

00:36:13

Circling back to psychedelics 30+ years after a...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/08/29

Bonney Elliott is a dual-licensed registered psychotherapist and nurse practitioner based in Ottawa, Canada. Working in private practice and group retreat settings, she has a decades-long career supporting people grieving loss and chronic illness, people recovering from trauma and those navigating significant life transitions. As we will hear in this episode, Bonney is also a person learning to caretake herself and find her own joy. After a childhood peppered with references to psychedelics in the

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00:44:45

Finding community in the rave scene, a career in...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/08/14

Doris is a neuroscientist who has over 25 years of experience working in the field of substance use and addiction. She has worn many hats over the years - from rave kid and community harm reduction advocate in the 90s, to becoming an academic research scientist using brain imaging to understand addiction, to serving as knowledge mobilizer supporting evidence-informed policies, programs, and decisions. However in our conversation together, we dive deeply into her personal journey with psychedelic

en-ca

00:50:04

Existential questions in childhood, a near death...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/07/28

Yamina Abassi is a lover of life, a psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist, and she makes sense of the how's and why's of life through relationship and connection. Her journey with psychedelics began as a young adult in recreational settings, and she quickly became fascinated with its potential to offer new ways of understanding herself, others, and the world around her. This curiosity and love for people, along with a near-death experience at the age of 25, led her to pursue academic avenues of

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00:46:12

A liberal catholic upbringing, hoping for the magic...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/07/14

Judith is a New York-born-and-bred naturalized Canadian mother of two young adults. She is a technical writer and trainer, and like many folks curious about psychedelics, also a life-long learner. She came to the psychedelic community in 2018 as she was seeking relief from overwhelming grief, depression, and anxiety. As we hear in this episode, Judith took a measured approach to her entry into the psychedelic space, coming to psychedelics seeking healing, and ultimately finding that and much

en-ca

00:34:30

A lonely childhood, learning empathy, finding trust...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/06/13

Raymond Feng is a breakdancer, writer, appreciator of life, and a self-described life-long learner. He discovered his passion for psychonautics through psychedelic medicine and spirituality, and has brought that passion into his life in a variety of ways. Academically, he has finished two Bachelor degrees at University of Ottawa, one in Biomedical Sciences and the other in Psychology, and recently completed a Master’s in Mental Health Counselling & Behavioral Medicine at Boston University School

en-ca

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