Building Bridges: Queering Psychedelics Two Years Later

Featuring Alex Belser, Alex Dymock, Clancy Cavnar, Zoë Dobus and Kaston Anderson-Carpenter

Happy Pride! Join us for a lively conversation about the intersection of queer identity and psychedelic medicine and consciousness. Two years ago Chacruna hosted an historic conference, Queering Psychedelics, that brought together leaders and queer visionaries within the psychedelic community. Today, it’s time to circle up and build bridges to the future we can envision together. A future in which we address and dismantle sexist, heteronormative, transphobic, and homophobic forms of oppression in the psychedelic movement. We’ll talk about queer psychedelic phenomenologies, the abandonment of conversion therapy, the hard work of self-acceptance through psychedelic practices, and also the uniquely queer gifts of queer pleasure, mysticism, and magic. We’ll discuss race, intersectionality, and psychedelics as liberatory tools for LGBTQIA+ folks, and center transgender and gender diverse psychedelic experience. In this event, we aim to interrogate the continuing radical potential of queer psychedelia and create a space to move from oppression to collective liberation.

📷Dr. Alex Belser has been a leader in the psychedelic research community for the last twenty years, having served as an investigator on clinical trials of psilocybin and MDMA to treat depression, anxiety, substance use, OCD, PTSD, and end-of-life distress. Dr. Belser is a psychologist and Co-Investigator at Yale University.  He serves as the Chief Clinical Officer of Cybin where he leads their clinical programs in psychedelic therapeutics. He is also part of Chacruna Institute’s Women, Gender Diversity, and Sexual Minorities Working Group. Dr. Belser previously served as Chief Clinical Officer at Adelia Therapeutics, where he directed the clinical program investigating tryptamines and phenethylamines for a variety of treatment indications. Dr. Belser has authored over a dozen peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters. He worked as a therapist on studies of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of severe PTSD. Dr. Belser studied at Georgetown University, the University of Cambridge, Columbia University, New York University, and Yale University. Dr. Belser trained at Bellevue Hospital, Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital, and New York Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University. See more here http://alexbelser.com and here http://centerforbreakthroughs.com.

Alex Dymock, PhD is a Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London in the Department of Law. She has a particular interest in the relationship between sexuality and drug use, and is also broadly interested in drug policy, marginalised sexual desires and practices, the history of drugs and psychiatry, feminist and queer theory, criminal law and processes of criminalisation. She previously led a project funded by the Wellcome Trust entitled Pharmacosexuality: The Past, Present and Future of Sex on Drugs, investigating the historical and contemporary relationship between processes of pharmaceuticalisation, recreational drug use and sexuality. She has to date published work from this study in the International Journal of Drug Policy and short articles for Wellcome Collection and Chacruna.

Clancy Cavnar has a doctorate in clinical psychology (Psy.D.) 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 at the California Institute of Integral Studies (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

Dr. Kaston Anderson-Carpenter is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Michigan State University. His research, teaching, and community advocacy centers on substance use and social determinants of health in underserved and marginalized communities. He is a doctoral-level Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D) and licensed behavior analyst in Michigan. His work has been published in multiple journals, including Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Academic Pediatrics, and the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.Since 2010, he has worked with organizations and coalitions at multiple levels to promote health equity and holistic healing in diverse populations.

Zoë Dubus is a PhD student in contemporary history at TELEMMe in the University of Aix-Marseille in France, and a research associate at the Institut des Humanités en Médecine, CHUV, in Switzerland. She studies the transformations of medical practices and health policies in relation to the use of psychotropic drugs (morphine, cocaine, and LSD), from the 19th century until the present day. She seeks to understand the relationship between physicians and consciousness altering products, conceived alternatively as innovative medicines or as poisons. She is also a member of GeFeM, a university research group on gender, and is a founding member of the French Psychedelic Society.

This talk will be recorded and immediately available for rewatch for all attendees.

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