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My Psychedelic Roots

Updated biweekly, 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

society & culture personal journals

All Episodes

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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00:36:52

Seeking knowledge, experiencing suffering, and...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/06/02

Manzar Zare is a Muslim woman, mother, legal professional and PhD student who is conducting research on psychedelics and the mental health of people of color, with a particular focus on support to Muslim women. This research naturally played a big role in her decision to have her own experience with psychedelics, which she recently experienced in a well supported retreat in Jamaica. This decision also came out of her experience of becoming a mother and navigating her own mental health struggles with

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00:29:25

Questioning his life path, learning the value of set...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/05/16

Joe La Torre is a psychedelic enthusiast and researcher, currently serving as Lead Research Psychologist at the Center for Novel Therapeutics in Addiction Psychiatry (NTAP) at the University of Washington, where he co-leads a variety of research including a three-year Phase 2 psilocybin safety clinical trial funded by the state of Washington. In our conversation, Joe shares his path towards psychedelics, which includes questioning his academic pursuits in Buddhist studies, and eventually learning

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00:31:28

A mysterious illness, experimenting with plants, and...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/05/05

Laura Ritzie is a counsellor with over 20 years of experience supporting clients in both the public and private sectors. She is also a PhD student with a passion for researching psilocybin in ceremony and contributing to conversations about loss, grief and our relationship with death. She is curious about people's experiences of connection in relation to resilience, meaning making and flourishing. And she is a warm and thoughtful person who brings this In our chat together, Laura shares about her

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00:51:16

Reconciling conservatism and queerness, losing self,...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/04/24

Trigger Warning: discussions of suicide and suicidalityKellen Saxberg is a self-proclaimed queer history nerd, psychedelic enthusiast, and student researcher on the intersection of queerness, psychedelics and healing. In our conversation together, Kellen and I talk about navigating conservativism and queerness in their youth, their experiences of losing a sense of self, experiencing awe and cultivating trust, and eventually moving towards finding their way back home, both literally and figuratively,

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00:48:21

A chaotic upbringing, seeking authenticity, learning...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/04/13

Tahlia Harrison is a therapist, researcher and bioethicist who comes from an ethnically, culturally, spiritually, and racially mixed background. Not surprisingly, she is someone who embraces complexity, and as our conversation reveals, much of her career and research interests in psychology and ethics stem from her own personal experiences navigating complex relationships and traumatic experiences. In our chat, we also get to know her as someone full of joy, self-awareness, humour and

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00:45:24

Childhood curiosity, navigating identities, and...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/03/28

Sheldomar Elliot has years of experience in food justice, community support and research roles, and is deeply committed to addressing food insecurity and advancing Black food sovereignty across the City of Toronto. As you will hear in this episode, Sheldomar is also passionate about exploring the intersections of psychedelics with access, community, and healing.Our wide-reaching conversation touches on his experiences of magic and curiosity in childhood, the complexity of navigating identity in both

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00:24:49

My Psychedelic Roots: a traditional religious...

My Psychedelic Roots ·

2025/03/18

Katherine Kimbell, (RN, BA) was introduced to the concept of psychedelics by the CBC Radio program "Ideas" in November 2015 at age 78. This was a profoundly life-changing experience that led to her eventual first psychedelic experience a few months later. Her story is wonderfully unique, while also echoing the pains that many people navigate in life—grappling with the loss of faith, confronting shame, and cultivating acceptance and forgiveness for others and for oneself.ShownotesMcLean's magazine

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