Psychedelic Professionals Meet: BOULDER

Psychedelic Professionals Meetup Groups are in Boulder, Denver, Fort Collins, and Pikes Peak Region! Let's keep Colorado on the leading edge of psychedelic medicine work by coming together in community to learn, share, and grow. Each Psychedelic Professionals Meetup Group starts with an informative topic relevant to research, practice, policy, or activism around psychedelic medicines, followed by open discussion and an opportunity to connect with like-minded others. 

For our May meetup.... Have you listened to the Cover Story podcast, Power Trip? Well, if you have, you know there is a lot to discuss about it! We are excited to host a panel discussion and community space to talk about some of the pressing issues and important values that surfaced through this podcast series, and importantly, to discuss power and safety in psychedelic spaces. Panelists are coming with different opinions, varying perspectives, and their own experiences to inform this dialogue, so we expect it to be lively and compelling. We need spaces to look at the hard stuff, to disagree, to look at our shadows, and build an ethos of ethics together as a learning community. Please join us for this important moment of reflection!

Panelists include:

Bruce Poulter, MPH: I have been interested and worked much of my career with people in altered states of one form or another.  I began my health career as an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurse at University of California (UC) San Francisco Moffitt Hospital when the AIDS pandemic first emerged and began devastating our communities.  In response to the failure of ICU’s to improve the morbidity and mortality rates of their clients I received a Masters in Public Health from UC Berkeley in Health Planning and Policy.  Moving to Boulder, Colorado I then developed public health programs including one of the first certified nurse-midwife based perinatal programs serving low income women, and a program that identified and provided care for families at risk for abuse and neglect of their children.

Frustrated with the public sector, I received training as a Rolf Structural Integration Practitioner and worked the next 25 years with people in chronic pain and later was introduced to the healing potential of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy as an intimate observer of the first government approved MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) study in Spain in 1999.  Returning from Spain, I was moved to run for the US senate as a progressive voice in stark contrast to the more common hopeless and stale political rhetoric.  I have provided harm reduction services thru Zendo and other organizations and have now worked in many MAPS studies as a sub-investigator/therapist, beginning in 2012 with MAPS MDMA for PTSD Boulder Study, to MAPS Healthy Volunteers Study and now with the MAPS Phase 3 Clinical trials.  In addition to my direct care work, I am a lead clinical supervision with our Phase 3 therapists as well as a lead trainer for therapists moved by this powerful healing work.

Shoshana Aal, PsyD: Shoshana is a psychologist who provides ketamine assisted psychotherapy through their practice at The Kaleidoscope Center (previously known as Watermark Counseling). Their practice is located in Lakewood, Colorado. They have a passion for social justice, advocacy work, and assisting marginalized populations. Their work has focused on a variety of matters including, trauma, relationships,  grief/loss, BIPOC experiences, complex trauma, intergenerational trauma, cultural diversity, LGBTQIA experiences and women’s experiences. Shoshana has worked as a student teacher for the Integrative Psychiatry Institute and as a cohort leader for the Naropa Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Certificate. In their personal life they are a parent, a foster parent, and works with art. Shoshana currently runs the Colorado KAP Consultation group and The Book club for Socially Aware Womxn. Memberships and volunteer experiences include several psychedelic organizations and social justice initiatives such as The Nowak Society, SPORE, SPORE’s Equity Team, SPORE Cultural/Community Workgroup, MYCOalition, and The Zendo.

Dori Lewis, MA, LPC: Dori is a licensed professional counselor who specializes in holding psychedelic space, feminist based sex therapy and transpersonal counseling. Dori aims to create safe, conscious spaces for others to access their whole self to support healing from a place of sovereignty. She is trained in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and offers KAP out of her Fort Collins-based practice.

Suggested donation of $10, payable at the door. Door fee goes directly toward paying for the venue rental. 

If you have ideas for topics or presentations for these meetup groups or would like to be more involved, please contact us!