090 | Healing Racial Trauma with Psychedelics + Diversifying Psychedelia w/ Dr. Monnica Williams
“Psychedelics have a real ability to just go very deep. Not only can you go deep into your own personal trauma, but it can take you into your childhood traumas, your infant traumas, into the traumas of your siblings, of your parents, of your grandparents, of your, whole ethnic group or your nation.”
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Dr. Monnica Williams is a professor at the University of Ottawa, where she holds the Canada Research Chair in mental health disparities. Her research is focused on mental health, race, racism and novel approaches to treatment. In this conversation, she is sharing about her research and tips for healing racial trauma based on the latest research.
She also offers a call to action for players in the psychedelic space to improve diversity at all levels. We also discuss what a culturally informed psychedelic experience looks like, and what to look for in a guide if you’re looking to heal racial trauma. This conversation offers support and hope for those who have been harmed by racial trauma. It also offers insights and language for those who aspire to be allies.
Topics Covered:
What is racial trauma?
Tools and research approaches that are applied to understand racial trauma
Treatments developed for racial trauma by Dr. Williams, including psychedelics
Community and group work versus individual treatment for racial trauma
Dr. Williams’ psychedelics for racial trauma research findings
Ideal set and setting when using psychedelics for healing racial trauma
How to vet your psychedelic guide for this work
A culturally informed psychedelic experience
Integrating a psychedelic experience when healing racial trauma
Intentional steps the psychedelic space can take to diversify
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Things Mentioned in This Episode
Show Links:
Support Dr. Williams’ research at mentalhealthdisparities.org
Where to find Dr. Monnica Williams
About Dr. Monnica Williams:
Dr. Monnica T. Williams is a board-certified licensed clinical psychologist and Professor at the University of Ottawa in the School of Psychology, where she is the Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Disparities. She is also the Clinical Director of the Behavioral Wellness Clinics in Connecticut and Ottawa, where she provides supervision and training to clinicians for empirically-supported treatments. Prior to her move to Canada, Dr. Williams was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School (2007-2011); the University of Louisville in Psychological and Brain Sciences (2011-2016), where she served as the Director of the Center for Mental Health Disparities; and the University of Connecticut (2016-2019), where she had appointments in both Psychological Science and Psychiatry. Dr. Williams' research focuses on BIPOC mental health, culture, and psychopathology, and she has published over 200 scientific articles on these topics. Current projects include the assessment of race-based trauma, barriers to treatment in OCD, improving cultural competence in the delivery of mental health care services, and interventions to reduce racism. This includes prior work as a PI in a multisite study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD for people of color. She also gives diversity trainings nationally for clinical psychology programs, scientific conferences, and community organizations.
Through the Kentucky Psychological Association (KPA), Dr. Williams served as the diversity delegate to Washington DC for the American Psychological Association (APA) State Leadership Conference for two consecutive years. She has served as the African American SIG leader for Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), and currently is Chair of their Academic Training & Education Standards (ATES). She serves as an Associate Editor of Behavior Therapy. She also serves on the editorial board of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Canadian Psychology, International Journal of Mental Health, Journal of Psychedelic Studies, the Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders and the Cognitive Behavioural Therapist. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the International OCD Foundation and co-founded their Diversity Council. Her work has been featured in all major US and Canadian media outlets, including NPR, CBS, CTV, Huffington Post, and the New York Times.
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Lana Pribic: [00:00:00] I am here with Dr. Monica Williams. Thank you so much for making the time to chat with me and share your wisdom with our modern psychedelics audience today. Welcome to the show.
Dr. Monnica Williams: Thank you. It's great to be here.
Before we dive into your work, can you please introduce yourself to our audience?
Dr. Monnica Williams: , my name's Monica Williams. I'm a professor at the University of Ottawa, where I'm the Canada Research Chair in mental health disparities. And and I do research on mental health and race and racism and and new approaches to treatment.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. And we're going to dive into all of that today. And are you Canadian? All right. Because I'm also in Canada.
Dr. Monnica Williams: I'm a permanent resident.
Lana Pribic: Perfect.
Dr. Monnica Williams: I'm American.
Lana Pribic: Okay. Gotcha. How are you liking living in Canada?
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah, it's nice. It's different, I think like anywhere it's an adjustment see, I moved here right before the pandemic, so it wasn't really like a great introduction to [00:01:00] Canada, but,
Lana Pribic: Yeah.
Dr. Monnica Williams: but I think I've settled in.
Lana Pribic: Awesome. Awesome. We're happy to have you here. So as a clinical psychologist what drew you to focusing in on psychedelics?
Dr. Monnica Williams: Actually, I had been doing research in OCD and PTSD, and at the time, there really wasn't much research funds for OCD, so I was focusing more on trauma, and I was contacted by MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, and they were doing PTSD trials and were really interested in finding out what How they could diversify their trials more.
They had seen an article that I was in, in the New York Times talking about racial trauma. And so they thought maybe we could team up and and help address this.
Lana Pribic: Okay. Amazing. Yeah. And when you were getting started, which was, when was that with the
Dr. Monnica Williams: gosh, that [00:02:00] was probably, I don't know. I want to say like, 2000 and 15, maybe.
Lana Pribic: Okay. Yeah. So what were some of those disparities that you were seeing or problems that you were seeing initially in the psychedelic space and in psychedelic research?
Dr. Monnica Williams: All right. For one, the research studies, the participants were not very diverse. So there weren't there weren't a lot of, people from different racial and ethnic groups. I think there was like maybe not even any black people at all. And so that always raises questions as to, how generalizable are the treatments, to other groups.
And also I think it's an equity issue as well. If some groups are having. access to research that includes treatments that may be beneficial. Everybody needs to have the same access to those treatments as well. And then also another problem was the the research teams. That were doing the study weren't [00:03:00] very diverse either.
So there were about, 16 or so different teams in different places across the U. S. and Canada and other places and that we're recruiting participants for the study. And so if the research teams aren't diverse, that can pose a barrier to getting diverse participants.
Lana Pribic: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What progress have you seen, if any, in those areas since 2015, around that time?
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah. I think there's been a lot of progress actually. For example the MAPS trial was MDMA for PTSD and what they found in their phase three trials was that they were able to Really diversify, bring in more people of color. And then also we were able to pull the data from some of the phase 2 lead in trials and the phase 3 trials and take a look at how people of color did and they did just as well.
So this was really [00:04:00] encouraging.
Lana Pribic: Okay, that's amazing. So let's dive a little bit more deeply into that. So you're known for writing, countless books and countless research papers. I couldn't even keep track of all of them on your website. But you're known for applying psychedelics to healing racial trauma and racial justice.
So before we dive into that, can you please define for our listeners what racial trauma means and how you're looking at that phenomenon?
Dr. Monnica Williams: So racial trauma, to put it simply, it's basically like PTSD that you get from racism and and what's a little different about it is that racism comes in many forms. Certainly a person can have a very singular traumatic racist experience that they get traumatized from, but most people have lots of experiences of racism, small and large that accumulate over time.
Until a person eventually becomes traumatized by it. And in addition to their own experiences, there [00:05:00] may be other layers on top of that, such as like community traumas or cultural traumas or historical traumas. That sort of all become a part of that traumatization, so to speak.
Lana Pribic: So there's this aspect of what has happened to the individual personally, but then there's also like a historical community based aspect to racial trauma. So what is carried by the community of people?
Dr. Monnica Williams: well, exactly. , we Know that people, you know, parents who are traumatized can pass that trauma onto their children and and they can pass that onto their grandchildren. So you know, even though I never say grew up in the Jim Crow era, my parents did, right? So They had that traumatic oppression all around them.
And and so I can still experience the traumatic effects of that at some level.
Lana Pribic: Yeah, that makes sense. Just like any trauma that can be passed on. So that makes sense. [00:06:00] So in studying this topic, what are some of the tools or approaches that are used to better understand racial trauma and how people can heal from it?
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yes. There hasn't been a lot of research really on how to treat racial trauma at all, unfortunately because of, again, the systemic barriers to even getting funding to do those types of research studies. They're not considered. high priorities by federal funding bodies.
So there isn't as much research on it. That being said, I have developed some treatments for racial trauma, including a group treatment for veterans that's in use at several VAs in the United States, and also individual trauma treatment for That's just based on cognitive behavioral practices that we're currently piloting that study now in my lab, the 12 session [00:07:00] racial trauma study, but also I'm very interested in psychedelics as a way to address racial trauma.
And we actually did my, at my clinic in Connecticut, we did publish a case study of a woman who had trauma related to experiences of discrimination in the workplace. And she also had some childhood abuse as well. And she was treated with ketamine assisted therapy. therapy for her racial trauma and did really well.
And we wrote a paper detailing that process as a way to help people see like, look, you can use psychedelics for racial trauma. And so I've, I consider that a milestone for sure. And and we want to do more more research like that. Also. I'm interested now in looking at group treatments, particularly group treatments with psychedelic plant medicines and how those can be used to help people with racial trauma as well.
I'm looking at some [00:08:00] partners in Jamaica and South America, where we can have these retreats where it's, legal and we don't have so much red tape to deal with, and also just in a different way. Kind of environment for participants where they can really relax and experience the healing of psychedelics for their racial trauma in a place where they're away from everything?
Lana Pribic: Yeah. I would imagine just, just like we spoke about at the beginning, how there's like this personal aspect with racial trauma, but there's also this community sense of. Yeah. pain than trauma that can be passed down. I would imagine that a group container and healing and community with something like that would be very powerful more so than with other traumatic conditions.
What do you think about that? And community and group work with this specific type of trauma?
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah, for me, I'm not really sure which is actually a better approach. It's the individual [00:09:00] approach that we tend to use. In. Psychotherapy settings or a group approach, which may even be a little bit more ceremonial. So for me, as a researcher, it's an empirical question.
I have to study and see which one is better, but I have a lot of reasons to think that the group treatment could be really effective because You have everybody there together and you have a sense of camaraderie just like we saw with the veterans groups where everyone is experiencing the same thing and They can talk about it and they know it's not going to be any judgment because everybody has been through it or struggling with it And everybody is supporting each other in it.
And I think that could be one real strength of a group approach. There, there's also some caveats too, though, because anytime that you have a group different people are coming in with different kinds of challenges and sometimes the psychedelic experience can can be very challenging for people.
And if one person is having a much more challenging experience than everyone else. [00:10:00] That could be potentially distraction for the other people. So we'd have to, we'll have to see how it pans out.
Lana Pribic: Okay. Spoken like a true researcher. Gotta run it through the research. Yeah. So This is a podcast about psychedelics, obviously, so can you tell us about some of the research that you're doing? Maybe some of the research you're most excited about or that really sticks out for you and what you've been finding.
Dr. Monnica Williams: a good question. As far as the psychedelics research goes, It's interesting because we've been doing a lot of the research we did, especially during COVID was survey research because it was too hard to see people in person. But that research turned out to be very interesting too, because we were able to do some nationwide surveys of people using psychedelics naturalistically and ask them, did these, did you use these for racial trauma?
Did you find they helped racial trauma? And And really look at their [00:11:00] symptoms before and after a memorable psychedelic experience. And so we were also able to do some subgroup analysis. So we looked at indigenous and Native American people as well. And we did a whole paper on what we found there.
And for the most part, every group that we looked at really was able to show that they benefited from psychedelics for racial trauma and it turned out the stronger, the psychedelic experience, the more intense, the more mystical aspects of it, the better the outcomes were for the person's racial trauma.
We found that challenging. Aspects were actually not good and people didn't do as well with challenging aspects, which I know there's a lot of talk about how, a bad trip doesn't have to be bad if you've learned from it and you grow from it. And I think certainly that's true, but what we found in terms of these negative experiences was more that people [00:12:00] maybe were in situations where they didn't feel safe or supported which I think is very critical to having a good psychedelic experience.
And I think particularly when people have struggled with problems like racism, It's super important that they feel safe because even just, going outside isn't safe because we know that, racism is like in the air we breathe. So I think it's even so much more important that that there be what we would call good, a good, sturdy container for people with, who've experienced racism.
And We use these findings to inform our recommendations for psychedelic therapy with people of color.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. For people who are listening who are considering going through psychedelic therapy or working with psychedelics to heal their racial trauma. Can you tell us a little bit about what you mean by a good sturdy container and what people should look out for?
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So when we talk about psychedelics and [00:13:00] psychedelic therapies, psychedelic healing. There's a lot of discussion around what we call set and setting where set can refer to a person's mindset. And setting is their surroundings and, um, and so for example, the setting, it could be a lot of different things.
It could be the decor of the room, but it can also be, for example the music that is played during the experience. It could also even refer to the people who are with you. You're the therapist. It could be the therapist or guides or facilitators, whatever you call them or happen to have as happen to have.
with you on your journey but all of these things are part of the setting. The setting's also, the, the home that you're in, the neighborhood that you're in, the country that you're in, right? So these are also larger pieces of the setting too, that people often don't think about.
And when we were doing our research study at the University of [00:14:00] Connecticut, when we were part of the MAPS MDMA trials, we had put a very specific emphasis on recruiting people of color and providing culturally. Informed experience. And so we put a lot of effort into making sure that people felt very comfortable coming in.
And the artwork, for example, we wanted to have it representing a variety of different ethnic groups and even the music that we selected. People sometimes say, Oh if you use instrumental music with no words, then there's no cultural aspect to it. But that's absolutely not true.
Because even, if it's, classical music that, could be European music, right? It could be, something from Beethoven or Mozart. Those are, white European composers from particular eras. It's very, culturally that there's a strong cultural influence there.
So we have to think about all of these things in terms of, making people feel comfortable. [00:15:00] And and that's part of the set. And also the therapists themselves need to also be able to be equipped to handle whatever comes up for that person. And for so many people of color who are navigating experiences of racism regularly racial issues come up and And most clinicians are not really taught how to navigate or assist people who are struggling with racial issues.
So even before we even put psychedelics in the mix we already know that the therapists in general are poorly equipped to to help people with these kinds of, with these kinds of things. And and so this is why it's so important that therapists are have done their own work, have worked on their own biases so that they're not bringing those biases with them with the clients that they're working with, and that they're also able to address any types of racial issues that come up or cultural issues [00:16:00] or ethnic issues.
Or issues around really any kind of marginalized identity because if a person has a marginalized identity odds are there's more stuff to work on with that. So therapists have to be ready and knowing that, your therapist is not gonna become upset or offended or confused when these issues come up, that helps the person feel more safe.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Like always, it's so important to choose the right guide. So with working on racial trauma in particular, what are some ways that People can like vet their guide or do you have any questions that people can ask or just like ways to, yeah, do their due diligence to make sure that this is a guide such as one that you described.
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yes, I think if find somebody from your own ethnic and cultural group. There's a better chance that they are able to relate to you and understand your struggles and will be less [00:17:00] probably thrown or concerned about those problems coming up. It's not always possible to get somebody from your own ethnic group unfortunately.
Or sometimes people don't want someone from their ethnic group because maybe they feel like that they may be judged by somebody from their own group, particularly if in their culture, there's not a wide acceptance for psychedelics or a wide acceptance for mental health concerns, or they feel maybe they feel like they don't fit into their, They're a group very well, so they may not want that, but but either way, all therapists need to ideally, learn to be comfortable working in this way.
And one thing that it's important to look for is, I would think, just talk to the person ahead of time about your marginalized identities. And most people don't. Many people have more than one marginalized identity. So I could be racialized as Black, I may also have a different sexual or gender orientation, or I may be part of a stigmatized religious group.
And I think it's important [00:18:00] to bring all of that to the person that you would like to work with and see how they respond when you talk about these different identities. If they don't if they seem uncomfortable or uncertain or change the topic, they're probably not the right person because that shows that, they, they have discomfort and need to do their own, more of their own work before trying to help you around those things.
If they can have a helpful conversation and they seem concerned if they ask questions that that are appropriate questions. Then I would say that's probably a good chance that they're a safe person to work with.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you so much. That's really helpful. I'm sure for people listening. Are there any other tips or words of wisdom or advice that you can lend to people listening who are considering embarking on doing this work for themselves?
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yes, I think it's really important to work with somebody who's experienced, who's got a good track record. Right now it's, it's challenging because a lot of work is being done underground. [00:19:00] And and I can't really recommend underground work because you don't really know the qualifications of the person that you're working with.
And there's no accountability if they cause harm. And and I feel bad saying that too, because I know a lot of underground practitioners and there are many who are very excellent. So I don't want to paint them all with a broad brush, but there's also many who don't know what they're doing and who cause harm.
And and also there's a real problem with sexual abuse in psychedelic therapy. And I think that's also something that people need to be aware of because when you're under the influence of a psychedelic, you're in a very vulnerable place. And people can be taken advantage of and they have been taken advantage of in that way.
And so if you're going for help for trauma, that's even doubly traumatizing to go and try to get help and then be victimized like that.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. And thank you for that. That. Just acknowledging the nuances that, not all underground providers are [00:20:00] doing bad work. They're not all doing good work. I think we can see that in both the underground and the above ground and it's just so important to be so cautious and So careful and just like really slow with choosing a provider or a guide to work with.
So yeah, thank you for expressing those nuances. It's always important when that comes from a researcher who is operating above ground. A lot of I feel like there's usually this either you're like for the above ground or for you're for the underground and the nuances aren't often recognized. So I appreciate that.
Dr. Monnica Williams: Oh, you're welcome. And I should also say that there's plenty of above ground people that are not very good. So we've got good and we've got good and bad people, underground, and above ground. It's just above ground. We have a little more accountability.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Yeah, because it's more visible for sure. So Transcripts With all the research that you've done on this topic, I'll ask you to maybe theorize a little [00:21:00] bit or just share a little bit about what you've found or what you think about this, but what is it about psychedelics that makes healing racial trauma effective?
Is there anything unique about the psychedelic experience that really lends itself to this type of work?
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah, that's a good question. And I do think there is because as I mentioned, usually people with racial trauma, it's not even just about. It's not just the trauma they experience, but it's also the trauma their communities have experienced, their families, their parents, their grandparents and psychedelics have a real ability to just go very deep.
And so not only can you go deep into your own. It can take you into your personal trauma, but it can take you into, your childhood traumas, your infant traumas. It can take you into the traumas of your siblings, of your parents, of your grandparents, of your, your whole ethnic group or your nation.
And so I feel like you can get perspective and [00:22:00] healing from, from generational types of things that you might not be able to touch with conventional therapy.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned earlier a culturally informed experience, and I actually saw that word on your website, culturally informed care. Can you talk to us a little bit about what you mean by that?
Dr. Monnica Williams: sure. So culturally informed basically means that you, I think as a provider, recognize that culture shapes and frames so much of. What we do and how we do it and our worldview and our client's worldview. And it's important to keep in mind that, your culture isn't the only way to look at it.
And in fact, we have to understand like our clients culture, or at least appreciate it and have some humility. Around the fact that they might have different beliefs about things. They might do [00:23:00] things in a different way. It doesn't make them worse or better. It's just different. But we respect that because that's where that person is coming from.
And Making a point not to just say, Oh if it comes up, I'll address it. And that's what I hear a lot of clinicians say, but actually that we're going into this with the intention of being as respectful as possible around the person's culture. I've been also looking for cultural strengths and drawing on their.
As a part of their healing process, right? Not sidelining that, but also, but incorporating that into the whole process as much as we can.
Lana Pribic: Okay. So what does a culturally informed o psychedelic experience look like?
Dr. Monnica Williams: So for psychedelics, I think that it would include first getting to know and understand the person that you're working with and the culture that they're coming from and where. What is it that they want from the experience and how is that connected to, to their [00:24:00] culture understanding how other people in their family and their community may also think about their, that person's struggles and And, what appropriate avenues are for help and healing.
That's going to make a big difference too, when we think about the support they may be or may not be able to get after their experience. And there's also really good instruments and tools that clinicians can use to help better understand a person's culture. There's a cultural formulation interview right at the back of the DSM 5 and a lot of clinicians don't know that's there but it's there and it's really helpful because it asks a lot of these questions and sometimes people Sometimes clinicians don't know how to ask the questions, and it's really nice because you can just read them and get the information to better understand the person's background and and their world.
And then also in terms of their experiences of oppression, there's also a questionnaire that I developed called the unrests, which will help get information about their [00:25:00] experiences around their race and ethnicity and those issues. And so Just going into the work with that background knowledge about the person makes a big difference in terms of making it a culturally informed experience.
And and I like to ask people to like, for example, I mentioned music, like what kind of music do they like, what kind do they not like, right? Because, if I don't, if I don't want, new age music and I, or if I don't want classical, I want maybe something from my cultural heritage, maybe that's jazz or gospel or something that should be considered too.
So those are some things that, that you can do to help make it culturally informed when you work with them. And then also cultural material is going to arise, um, from their psychedelic journey. And again, it's going to be important to, to not shy away from it, but first of all, to recognize that it's cultural when it comes up.
So if somebody. says, they saw, a constellation of a bear. I might say what does that mean? What does that mean to you? And is there anything, [00:26:00] significant about that in your culture? So that I can better understand the ramifications of their experience.
Lana Pribic: Yeah,
Dr. Monnica Williams: so things like that,
Lana Pribic: perfect. Yeah, the music plays such a big role in psychedelic journeys, doesn't it? Up until now, you've provided some amazing tips and advice for people who may want to use psychedelics to heal racial trauma. Is there anything that you can share about, after the ceremony, after the experience and the integration process that takes place after embarking on something like this?
Dr. Monnica Williams: yes, because often most of the work is after the experience, right? You come back and you, and maybe you've had all these thoughts and insights but what do you do with them? And so I think the integration is so important for really taking your experience and turning it into action and changes and growth.
Because you could just say, Oh, that's great. That was [00:27:00] interesting and forget about it, move on, untransformed, right? And so it's really important to make use of those things and also to understand too, that, there's going to be cultural elements in all of that and ultimately, healing racial trauma is going to involve getting some insights about the experience. Being able to, recognize that, all the negativity, hate, stereotypes, all of these things about the person are not true. They're not coming from inside you.
They're coming from outside you and and being able to love yourself and reject these these negative messages and also approach life in a different way. So usually people with racial trauma, they'll often accept a lot of racism before they say or do anything.
And it's important to recognize That's not okay. And that you can have some agency, you can push back against it. [00:28:00] Most of the time. And so you're going to take your learning from your experience and apply it where you can in your life. And sometimes people get insights like For example, I don't need to be at this job anymore because have lots of opportunities and I'm going to go someplace where I'm appreciated or you might realize, that some of the relationships that you have are not healthy for you because those people, may have unhealthy attitudes that, That are bringing you down, or you may have insights on how to educate people that you care about that you want to keep in your life.
You want them to be more supportive of you around your experiences. So I think taking those insights and moving them to action is really going to be critical for for growth.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Perfect. And I'm sure in your work, you have seen many people through the healing process, the therapeutic process, the psychedelic process, and seen some beautiful transformations and healing [00:29:00] happen. What words of advice can you offer to people who are listening and have been racially traumatized and are working through it?
What, yeah, what words of hope can you offer to them?
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah I think the most important thing is to understand that it's not you. It's our social psychopathology. So our society is sick and it's, and it makes other people sick, but you're not the one that's the problem. And so society's a problem, but we are now in a place we have to deal with it.
Right. So, so I would tell people not to be hard on themselves, but to be gentle and kind and loving to themselves. And And treat themselves with the same compassion that they would treat others who were experiencing the same thing. Yeah, I think that would be the most important message.
Lana Pribic: Thank you. Thank you. So I want to just shift gears just a little bit and talk about, , diversity in the psychedelic space. I want to just get your general thoughts, anything that comes to mind for you when you think about [00:30:00] diversity in the psychedelic space.
Dr. Monnica Williams: All right. Well, you know, I'm a researcher, so I think a lot about the diversity of my fellow researchers, the people that that I know when I see at conferences and that are, that are, Doing work also that's like minor that I might read about I might cite their papers or they might set my papers or they might review my grant proposals or, so it's our own kind of, I don't know why I want to say club, but our own circle, I think about my circle in that way.
And I don't see a lot of other people who look like me in that circle. See a lot of, like a lot of white dudes. And and I want that to be, and I want that to be more diverse. And I know that there are many women, many other people of color who are doing the work and for whatever reason they're not.
necessarily seen or recognized or they have difficulties navigating all the barriers to even being able to do the work. And there are many barriers [00:31:00] to, to do psychedelic work because psychedelics are so stigmatized. And so that makes it harder. It'd be hard for me to tell like a, a junior, researcher of color yeah, you should do this because I know how hard it is.
I know how hard it is even just to get your doctorate as a person of color, much less take on work that's inherently going to be stigmatizing. But we do need people to, we do need people to step up and join in if this is gonna be an inclusive space. And we need people who are already in this space to welcome in others and to also to see and appreciate the need for more diversity and to take intentional steps to diversify their research teams and their labs.
And to think about, not just, and not just bringing in, somebody at a lower level, and that's often what we see when people are pressed to diversify. They bring in something, an assistant undergraduate RA or somebody like that, and they say, okay, there's our person of color. It's no we need [00:32:00] also at, at the doctoral level and as PIs, so we need it across the board.
And and often sometimes those problems are even at a personal level, and that a lot of people don't even have any friends of color. They don't know anybody, right? Because their own circles are very homogenous. So I would also challenge people who may struggle with, To bring, to welcome in more, more diverse bodies, I would challenge them to look at their own lives and their own spaces and, and who are they hanging out with and going to dinner with and so forth and ask themselves if there's enough diversity there.
Lana Pribic: I love that you mentioned how the research teams and clinicians can diversify their teams at each level. I want to ask you about I guess different, like sectors and players in the psychedelic space and what are some of those intentional steps that they can all take to increase representation and diversity.
What can Like psychedelic [00:33:00] retreat centers and medicine providers do to take some intentional steps towards that
Dr. Monnica Williams: I think, just look at the people you're hiring or the people who are part of your team, the people who are doing, who are. For example, carrying out the retreat, but not just those people like, what about your retreat facilities? If you're renting a facility, you could be intentional about using like a black owned facility or and do things like that to diversify.
I would also look at look at the people who are coming to your retreats. Are they diverse? If they're not diverse, you got to ask yourself, what is your advertising look like and who is it reaching? And. And think about how you could reach other people as well. Just in terms of, Oh gosh organizations, psychedelic organizations, I would say, look at your staff, but don't you look at your staff, look at your board directors, how diverse are they?
If they're not very diverse then you maybe want to take some intentional steps to do that. Do you have a DEI [00:34:00] committee as part of your organization? And if you do what kind of power do they have? Is it just, um, is it just window dressing? Are they just in a consulting role or do they actually, or do you actually make a point to put everything through the DEI committee before it, it goes out into the world, right?
That's what ultimately you would want. So I would say that, probably most of the players, so to speak, are not, I would say, have not fully stepped up in the way that they need to in order to realize diversity. And in fact, I would say probably many have window dressing so to speak around their diversity goals without really true implementation around around leadership and in their priorities.
I think those are some things that can and should change.
Lana Pribic: Yeah, I was going to ask you about psychedelic companies. I feel like most of what you just said can apply to the psychedelic companies. Is there anything you want to add to that? [00:35:00] I'm
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah, no, I,
Lana Pribic: the for profit players out there.
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah, same thing, nonprofit and for profits, they all need to diversify their leadership and and make sure that, that everything that they do is going through a group that has, the expertise to weigh in and say, Oh, hey, maybe we shouldn't do this particular initiative because because this is falling at a bad time of the year for this cultural group, or this could be perceived in this way for this ethnic group to really have that expertise in place so that they're they're being considerate thoughtful and also learning from each other and growing in the process.
So this is important too.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Absolutely. What about just like the public, the psychedelic curious public? Maybe that's a lot of people out there listening to this podcast, but how can they take those intentional steps to support diversity in the space?
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah so again, I think the most important step people can make is to work on their own inner biases. [00:36:00] And I would challenge people to let's say you're you use psychedelics regularly the next time. That you decide to use psychedelics, make it your intention to become more aware of your own biases and to come up with insights around how you harm people around you with your biases and then what you can do about it.
So that's my challenge.
Lana Pribic: That is good. That is so good. Thank you. Yeah, that's perfect. And what about public facing figures and platforms such as myself or other media outlets who are also covering psychedelics?
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah I don't know. I can't fault you because, we're having this conversation right now. So that's
Lana Pribic: always room for improvement.
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah. I would just say, make sure to have opportunities to bring on a lot of different voices and also look, and look intentionally for voices that are counter stereotypical sometimes, um, people may have expertise in areas that you don't necessarily expect by [00:37:00] virtue of their identity.
You may assume that, um, that someone because of their ethnic group, or their religion may have certain things that are important to them. And that may not be the case. I would say, mix things up as much as you can.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Wow. I've never heard that term. Counter stereotypical. What do you mean by that? . I love
Dr. Monnica Williams: Like for example, here in Canada, it's very typical for, someone to start off a conference or something by having an indigenous person come and give a land blessing. And then we never see that indigenous person again through the whole conference. Or if we do, maybe they're doing some sort of ceremonial thing.
Maybe there's indigenous people that don't want to do ceremonial things. Maybe they want to talk about their research. Bring in indigenous researchers who are doing other stuff too. That's just one example, but there's like lots of examples like that, where we pigeonhole people into certain roles and and we don't have to do that,
Lana Pribic: Ooh. Yeah. Okay. That makes, thank you for explaining that. That makes so much sense. Now, I had a previous guest, McKayla [00:38:00] Amigo. I don't know if you are aware of her but she was. Talking about the exact same thing about the indigenous elders being invited to the conferences and they just do the land blessing and then, they're not even paid to come out or supported financially in any way.
So that's a, yeah, huge problem in within the conference space in the world. How can psychedelic conferences do better and tell us, yeah, that's one I didn't think of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Monnica Williams: question. I w I would say, again, making sure that there's good representation so often, they'll. Invite a bunch of keynote speakers and I can't tell you how many times I look at the list of keynote speakers and there's no people of color there.
And for example, I think, ICPR this year like they're, they don't have any keynote speakers of color and I reached out to them I'm like, hey, come on. They're like, yeah, sorry, we already filled our quota of speakers. We're not going to bring anymore. [00:39:00] And and that's not okay. And I think honestly, like we, as the public should demand better, and maybe we shouldn't go to conferences where they're not willing to, have Diversity in the people that they're leading their conference with.
Right? Yeah, they need to have diversity in their among their keynotes, among their topics, among their reviewers and among their conference organizing committee members.
Lana Pribic: Yeah the conferences are huge like a money game, aren't they, and got a pay to play, which is a whole other layer of why there's not diverse voices, right? Because there's a barrier to entry.
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah, there is. There's definitely a barriers to entry, but that being said, there are plenty of people who of color who can afford these things. They just don't want to put their money someplace unless they, See that, that there's inclusivity and value to it.
Lana Pribic: yeah. Yeah. Okay. And you mentioned that there's plenty of people of colour in the space that are, yeah, just [00:40:00] doing amazing work and aren't acknowledged. And I know there's so many to choose from, but if you were to tell us some of the people of colour in the space that have had the biggest impact on yourself and your work, who would you give a little acknowledgement to?
Dr. Monnica Williams: Oh, gosh. So many people, um, the first person that comes to mind is my dear friend, Bia Labace, who started Chacruna and which is just an amazing mission around diversity and indigenous voices and people whose voices are often not heard and And I think Chakruna is just doing such incredible work and, um, and I think that Pia, just, I think she deserves a lot more recognition, and I think if she were a white man, it would be a whole different story.
But, as a, Brazilian immigrant woman who's queer, I think that you just don't, you don't necessarily get the same respect. Likewise I think of some of my other fantastic colleagues, darren Smith who's he's black. He actually just [00:41:00] recently left Nashville and is now at the University of Washington and he's doing some great stuff there too.
But, again, it's always a struggle as a person of color to for your work to be recognized and appreciated. And I think he's just fantastic. And yeah, so many other voices out there. I'll put a pitch in for Sonia Faber, who's been my number one ally and co conspirator in all of this.
And and she's just such a, brilliant neuroscientist and and she's fantastic too.
Lana Pribic: Amazing. Thank you for that. Yeah. I've been meaning to have someone from Sharkoona on for so long, so that's a little nudge for me. Thank you for that. In closing how do you see like psychedelics? Playing a role in moving us closer to racial justice and more diversity.
And just a more healed world as a collective.
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah, that's a good question. Because. I think again, so much of this comes [00:42:00] down to our intention. We know that, psychedelics are fantastic there, but they're, they're a tool and people can use them in different ways. And I think sometimes there's an assumption that, if we just all take psychedelics, we'll all just be so connected that all of these kinds of, of problems will disappear.
And we know that's not true because the psychedelic space is just about as racist as everyone else. So they obviously don't automatically fix that problem. That being said, I do think that I do think that they can help people change in a way that maybe would be a lot harder without them.
But again, like I said, it goes back to intention. And I think if we all, make it our intention to To do better in this way and to grow and evolve past our cultural and social programming to actually see and treat other people as equals. Then I think we could make a really big difference actually.
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Thank you. And you have a new book coming out. Can you tell us a little bit about that?[00:43:00]
Dr. Monnica Williams: Oh gosh. Um, Which one? Uh, We have. We have a book that I've written with a fantastic team of people and Shannon Dames is actually the lead author and it's it's to teach people psychedelic assisted therapy is part of the deliberate practice series that is actually published by the American Psychological Association.
So that's very, this is a big deal because it's a very credible organization and the fact that they realized, oh, wait, we need to produce training materials for people who for, clinicians for psychologists who want to do psychedelic assisted therapy. And this is, I think, a huge milestone and really shows that, yeah, that we're starting to be taken seriously. Yeah, so I would encourage people, yeah, to go out and, and get that or if you're teaching if you're doing teaching, then it's a great classroom resource. We actually, I actually teach a class on Mental health and [00:44:00] psychedelics.
At the graduate level. And so now we have a textbook we can use.
Lana Pribic: That's amazing. I remember a few years ago, I was considering taking that course because I
To learn. Yeah, it's at the University of Ottawa, right?
Dr. Monnica Williams: yeah, we have some pretty amazing psychedelic courses and programs too. So I encourage people to check those out.
Lana Pribic: so cool. And the book, does it have a name and a date yet for release?
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah, it's called Deliberate Practice in Psychedelic Assisted Therapy and let me look and see what that release date is. April. It's coming out next month. Huh?
Lana Pribic: Wow, that's amazing. This episode will be released in April. So congratulations.
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah. April 23rd is what the publishers are saying.
Lana Pribic: I'll get your people to send me a link to it so we can link that in the show notes for people to check out. Amazing.
Dr. Monnica Williams: absolutely.
Lana Pribic: are there any other accessible resources for people that you can point them to who want to learn more about the topic of healing racial trauma with [00:45:00] psychedelics or just racial trauma in general?
Dr. Monnica Williams: I do have a book coming out on healing racial trauma and that'll be out later, I think this fall. It's not specific to psychedelics, but you could use it with psychedelics if you're a therapist to help people with their racial trauma. So that, that's coming. And then also I have some video resources through PESI that people can avail themselves of as well on that topic.
All these topics,
Lana Pribic: Amazing. Sounds like you're busy writing books all the time. Yeah.
Dr. Monnica Williams: I'm thinking I'm going to take a break now,
Lana Pribic: Yeah. Okay. I think you've written enough for
Dr. Monnica Williams: think I have.
Lana Pribic: 10 lifetimes. Yeah. Amazing. We'll link all of that for people in the show notes and how can people listening support your work and learn more about you.
Dr. Monnica Williams: Yeah they can go to my website. It's Monica Williams. com. So that's Monica with two N's Williams. com. And you can see like everything I'm doing there and my books there. And [00:46:00] also, if you want to support our research, which would be fantastic you can go to our lab website. Which is mentalhealthdisparities.
org and there's a link there where people can make donations to, to support the research we're doing.
Lana Pribic: Incredible. Thank you so much for sharing yourself. Thank you so much for doing the work that you're doing and just having so much grit with it. I know you've been at it for a long time and aren't giving up on it. So thank you so much and thank you for taking the time to share yourself with our audience today.
Really appreciate it and wishing you all the best in your future work.
Dr. Monnica Williams: All right. Thank you.
