Applying an Equity Lens to Policy in the Psychedelic Sector

This session provides an introduction to policy analysis from an equity-oriented perspective, with specific application to the psychedelic sector. Participants will explore how policies can perpetuate or disrupt inequities within the psychedelic community, including issues related to access, effectiveness, and experiences within psychedelic initiatives. Using policy tools and frameworks presented in the session, participants will have an opportunity to apply an equity lens to issues in psychedelics, and identify how changes to policy can make psychedelic initiatives safer, fairer and more socially just.

Presenter: Alycia Fridkin (she/her) is a health policy professional who works to make health care and drug policy more equitable and anti-racist. She has a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from UBC focused on Indigenous health policy, and a Masters in Public Health from the University of Toronto. Alycia is a White settler with Eastern European roots living on the unceded homelands of Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Peoples.

Breathwork with Damian Kai Norman

Come join us for an experiential breakout session on the therapeutic practice of Conscious Connected Breathwork, focusing on nervous system repatterning. There is a transformative power behind coming together as a collective to engage in group work that allows us to tap into our vulnerability, authentic expression, and sense of empowerment.

If you are looking to process blocked emotional patterns, reprogram limiting core beliefs, and come back into alignment with your purpose and intuition. This is the place for you! Let’s co-create the world we want to live in by working on ourselves collectively and individually

Presenter: As a certified counsellor specializing in trauma and somatic therapy, a 2x certified breathwork facilitator, a psychedelic integration counsellor, a certified ICF accredited coach, and a holistic movement practitioner with a professional dance background; Damian Kai Norman values community, freedom, and physical-emotional embodiment. He loves facilitating group work and wellness retreats, creating safe containers for authentic vulnerable conversations, befriending our nervous system, and cultivating our capacity to feel fearlessly. Norman has an intimate relationship with trauma and continues to learn through lived experience how to compassionately relate to his own chronic pain through working with the nervous system. Norman is here to do the work with you and attune to your personal journey. With a calm grounded presence and an uplifting encouraging spirit, Norman invites you to connect with your body and build a relationship of trust, curiosity and compassion… Creating a loving partnership with yourself.

Presenter: Manesh Girn Postdoctoral Neuroscientist | Chief Research Officer | Content Creator

While psychedelic research was dormant for the latter half of the 20th century, neuroscience grew by leaps and bounds. Over the last 30 years in particular, developments in neuroscience have greatly deepened our understanding of the brain processes underlying complex human behaviour, cognition, and subjective experience. Now, with the psychedelic renaissance in full flight, these tools have been applied to investigate the acute and lasting brain effects of psychedelics – yielding fascinating insights into how these medicines work.

Psychedelics are known to induce rapid and often long-lasting changes in our behaviour and mental health. Contemporary frameworks around this ability have foregrounded the concept of ‘neuroplasticity’, a buzz word which refers to the ability of the brain to create or re-organize connections between neurons. Neuroplasticity has begun to usurp mystical experiences as the holy grail of psychedelic effects – to the extent that some researchers have argued that the psychedelic experience itself may be an inconsequential side effect of underlying changes in neuroplasticity.

In this interactive workshop, I will provide a guided tour through what exactly neuroplasticity is, the ways in which psychedelics affect it, and how it can be best harnessed for personal transformation and behaviour change in the context of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. The discussion will be framed using concepts from the latest theoretical frameworks in psychology and neuroscience, drawing heavily on the concept of ‘self-directed neuroplasticity’. Expect to leave this workshop with an informed and practical understanding of neuroplasticity that can be applied both in your own life, and in the context of working with others.

Plenary: Touch, Intention and Consent

Presenter: Jeff Slow Hand 

Compassionate touch is an essential part of human interaction. It can establish connection, provide reassurance, and demonstrate care.  However, touch can also be unwanted or misaligned if the intent of the touch is unclear, or if the extent and boundaries of the touch are not explicitly agreed to by all involved. This workshop will offer experiential learning to explore the aspects of intention and consent as they apply to touch.  

The workshop will not presume to dictate what kind of touch, if any, is warranted in psychedelic medicine settings. However, we recognize some practitioners incorporate simple compassionate touch – even holding a hand – as part of their work. This workshop will provide an opportunity to consider intent and consent for touch in any context.  

We will draw on principles and practices used by professionals in the field of somatic sex education, where touch is a central part of the client’s pleasure and healing goals, but where the risks of boundary violations or retraumatization are significant, and must be actively and co-operatively managed.  Participants in this hands-on workshop will be invited to consider how the lessons and tools from that therapeutic modality can be applied to other contexts in their own professional practices or personal lives, different as they may be.

Plenary: Saving My Life 

Presenter: Shelley Roy 

My session is sharing my story and experience of acquiring a brain injury, the journey, the denial, the pain.
Then finding a path to psilocybin with support of others, crawled out of the hell of getting my new Shelley.
Over the last month I had to stop taking my daily for medical assessments. Over this last month of not taking my medicine, I have come to the great understanding that psilocybin has saved my life.