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Difficult Conversations, the Need for Culturally Competent Care, and Why Representation Matters

July 12, 2024
Featuring: Sara Reed & Alex H. Robinson

In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, David interviews Sara Reed: Vital instructor, lecturer, and lead psychedelic research therapist at Imperial College London; and Alex H. Robinson: Vital student, integration coach and psilocybin facilitator for Heroic Hearts Project, and distinguished Army SOF combat Veteran with a decade of active duty service.

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In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, David interviews Sara Reed: Vital instructor, lecturer, and lead psychedelic research therapist at Imperial College London; and Alex H. Robinson: Vital student, integration coach and psilocybin facilitator for Heroic Hearts Project, and distinguished Army SOF combat Veteran with a decade of active duty service.

Reed has worked with MAPS to make clinical trial populations more diverse and is creating culturally sensitive Clinical Research Forms for future research trials, and Robinson spearheaded her unit’s Cultural Support Team program and contributed to policy changes to help place women into traditionally male-centric Special Operations roles. Representing marginalized groups themselves, they’re both passionate about making psychedelic therapy more inclusive and representative of the general population, and getting more practitioners up to speed to be able to deliver culturally competent care.

They discuss:

  • The importance of having difficult conversations and calling out bad behavior
  • The fallacy of zero-sum thinking: Doing something special for a smaller community doesn’t take away from the main goal; it adds to it
  • The benefit of being able to self-reflect and personalize content when most psychedelic education consists of one-sided lectures
  • The challenge of getting people who don’t feel represented to enroll in clinical trials, and how personal stories go a long way

and more!

Links

Sarajreed.info

Akjournals.com: Culturally informed research design issues in a study for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder

Psychedelics Today: Sara Reed – Ketamine Therapy Through a Culturally Responsible Lens 

Alex-robinson.org

Heroicheartsproject.org

YouTube: PT Live: Joe Moore and Alex H. Robinson Discuss the Heroic Hearts Project

PT341 – Racism, Trauma, Research, and Psychedelics, featuring: Monnica Williams, Ph.D.

PT372 – The Heroic Hearts Project: Veterans and The Impact of Storytelling, featuring: Jesse Gould & Zach Riggle

Atableofourown.org

PT278 – Ayize Jama-Everett, Courtney Watson, Leticia Brown, and Kufikiri Imara – A Table of Our Own

Researchgate.net: The Cultural Genogram: Key to Training Culturally Competent Family Therapists

Vitalpsychedelictraining.com

Sara Reed

In this Episode

Sara Reed

Sara Reed is the lead psychedelic research therapist at Imperial College London. Her current research participation involves guiding on the psilocybin for OCD trial and co-creating therapy manuals for gambling addiction and opioid use disorder with psilocybin. She has spent her early career examining how culture influences how we diagnose and treat mental illness. With a passion for exploring best practices in psychedelic-assisted therapy, Sara lectures internationally on ways to be more culturally responsible.

Socials: Linkedin

Alex H. Robinson

Alex H. Robinson

Alex H. Robinson is a distinguished Army SOF combat Veteran with a decade of active duty service within the Special Operations community. During her tenure, she spearheaded the unit’s Cultural Support Team program and participated in numerous combat deployments with the 75th Ranger Regiment and other Tier 1 organizations. Alex was instrumental in the selection process of women in the Special Operations community and contributed significantly to policy changes facilitating the integration of women into traditionally male-centric Special Operations teams.

Following her military service, Alex pursued higher education at the University of Southern California as a Tillman Scholar, earning a master of science in organizational psychology with a focus on gender equity initiatives and LGBTQ advocacy. Struggling with various mental and physical health challenges after leaving service, she sought alternative treatments outside the VA system and discovered healing through plant-based medicines, breathwork, writing, yoga, and meditation.

Currently, Alex is a leadership, human performance, and psychedelic integration coach. They contribute to the Heroic Hearts Project as an integration coach and psilocybin facilitator supporting Veteran healing retreats in Oregon, with a particular emphasis on caring for the minority Veteran community. As a certified Oregon psilocybin facilitator, their focus is centered around advancing equitable access to these transformative healing modalities for all people. Alex also supports Heroic Hearts Project retreats in Mexico and Peru, working alongside Indigenous facilitators, as they are dedicated to ensuring Indigenous voices are at the forefront of the psychedelic movement. Additionally, Alex is rekindling their passion for writing and will be attending Sarah Lawrence College’s MFA program to further develop their craft in poetry and prose.

Socials: Instagram / Linkedin

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