Professional Mentoring

William A. Richards (Bill) is the Director of Therapy at Sunstone Therapies and a psychologist in the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He has been implementing research studies with psilocybin since 1999. His graduate degrees include M.Div. (Yale) , S.T.M.  (Andover-Newton) and  Ph.D. (Catholic University). He also studied with Abraham Maslow at Brandeis University and with Hanscarl Leuner at Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany, where his involvement with psilocybin research originated in 1963. From 1967 to 1977, he implemented projects of psychotherapy research with  LSD, DPT, MDA and psilocybin at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, including protocols designed to investigate the promise of psychedelics in the treatment of alcoholism, depression,  narcotic addiction and the psychological distress associated with terminal cancer, and also their use in the training of religious and mental-health professionals. His book, Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences has been released by Columbia University Press.

For over 15 years Dr Ben Sessa has been at the forefront of psychedelic and cannabis research and clinical medicine in the UK through his affiliations with Imperial College London. Ben qualified as a medical doctor from UCL in 1997 and went on to specialise in psychiatry. For 25 years he has worked as a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist with young people and adult patients in the field of addictions and trauma-related psychiatry.

Ben started studying psychedelics as a junior doctor and has taken part in research projects at Bristol University, Cardiff University and Imperial College London with LSD, psilocybin, DMT, ketamine and MDMA – receiving and/or administering all of these compounds in legal research settings.

One of the first doctors to develop the field of contemporary psychedelic research in the UK, he was the former co-founder, former CEO, and subsequently the former Head of Psychedelic Medicine at Awakn Life Sciences, a Bio-Tech company carrying out psychedelic research into addictions. Awakn opened four clinical centres in the U.K. and Europe, providing psychedelic psychotherapy with ketamine, for a wide range of psychiatric indications, as well as an extensive R&D psychedelic research program.

Ben was one of the first Medical Cannabis psychiatric prescribers in the UK.

Ben is a trained MDMA, ketamine and psilocybin therapist. He has led research into MDMA-assisted therapy for Alcohol Use Disorder and is published widely in the academic and medical press.

Ben is the co-founder and past president of the Breaking Convention conference. He is the author of The Psychedelic Renaissance (2012/2017), the novel ‘To Fathom Hell or Soar Angelic’ (2015) and Altered States (2021). Ben lives and works in Bristol, UK.

Website: www.drsessa.com

Dr Lauren Macdonald is a psychiatry doctor and therapy guide at the Centre for Psychedelic Research, Imperial College London. She currently works on trials studying psilocybin-assisted therapy for anorexia nervosa and fibromyalgia, and DMT for treatment-resistant depression. Alongside her clinical work she is a retreat facilitator and co-founder at Essence Medicine, an organisation providing psycho-spiritual care to people facing life threatening illness. She has degrees in Medicine and Psychology, and has undertaken further training in Integrative Medicine, Compassionate Inquiry, Yoga, and Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies).

Sara Reed is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and psychedelic research therapist at Imperial College London. Her prior research work includes participation as a study therapist for a Phase 2 MDMA clinical study of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). She additionally received training at Yale University for the Psilocybin-Induced Neuroplasticity in the Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder study and is listed as a contributor to the therapist training manual for this treatment. Sara has spent her early career examining ways culture informs how we diagnose and treat mental illness. As a mental health futurist, she reimagines what mental wellness can look like in this digital era. Sara lectures on topics fusing culturally sensitive practices within mental health care and advises organizations on anti-oppressive and inclusive practices.

Brian D. Richards, Psy.D., completed a Master’s degree in Existential-Phenomenological Psychology at Duquesne University, a Psy.D. at the University of Denver School for Professional Psychology, and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit (now the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research), where he contributed to some of the original research administering psilocybin with cancer patients and healthy normal adults. Dr. Richards was formerly a Clinical Director with MedOptions, the largest behavioral health provider in the United States. He now cares for patients with a cancer diagnosis at Maryland Oncology Hematology, The Aquilino Cancer Center, and works with Sunstone Therapies on clinical trials with LSD, psilocybin, and MDMA. Dr. Richards also teaches and mentors students at the California Institute for Integral Studies, the leading Psychedelic Medicine Certificate Program worldwide. He is a Subject Matter Expert on Psilocybin with the Board of Psychedelic Medicine and Therapies, and has worked with BrainFutures on Coding and Reimbursement for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy.