MY Story

Around the world and back again

When I was just starting my psychiatry career, I had high hopes, big dreams. But without a whole lot of lived experience, I set out to try and save any little piece of the world that I could. I started going to a different country in the developing world each year on a medical mission.  I took students to refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border. I hurried off to post-quake Haiti after the devastation there, volunteering in tent clinics. I trekked across rural Ghana working on telehealth infrastructure for expert consults. My intentions were good—there’s just so much suffering out there in the world, and my heart wanted to help. However, the more I immersed myself in these beautiful cultures, the more unease I felt about bringing our western mental health treatment paradigm of trying to fix things. And let’s be completely honest—our mental health system out here needs some work. While we’re trying to treat people’s symptoms, we often end up numbing instead of helping people embrace and flow with the full expression of their lives, including the difficult emotions. So I put my international humanitarian efforts on hold for a while, and started a free clinic close to home instead. 

Fast forward to a few years ago. Still searching for ways to alleviate suffering, and change how we approach mental health. I was about 200 clinical trials deep, and had led some pivotal studies of ketamine, sending me down this lovely rabbit hole of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies. I became Coordinating Investigator for MAPS and their latest indication of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for Eating Disorders. And then I found myself in the jungle, sitting in front of the shaman, holding a cup of ayahuasca tea in my hands. I had traveled all this way, not to bring medicine or knowledge, but in search of new options for my clients and their healing journey—and got more than I bargained for, much more.