On this episode of The Psychonaut Show, we talk with psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Dr. Mona Jain. Among many other things, Dr. Mona maintains a psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy practice in Western Massachusetts. She discusses with us the ongoing history of racial oppression in psychedelics at the collective scale. Rather than taking a pessimistic view, however, she also guides listeners in how to honor and connect to traditional practice instead. Dr. Mona shares with us the intentional, grounded principles of her psychedelic practice, starting from her identity as a South Asian woman and rooted in the natural landscape of Western Massachusetts. She considers how, on an individual level, psychedelics can facilitate greater connection to ancestors including both racialized traumas and ancestral strengths. Dr. Mona passionately encourages listeners to think about racial justice, equity, and interconnection at all levels of psychedelic experience.

Links:

• Dr. Mona’s psychedelic clinic in Western MA https://satyapsychedelics.com/

• The Ethical Principles of Traditional Indigenous Medicine to Guide Western Psychedelic Research and Practice that Dr. Mona mentioned as an ethical framework

• Culture and Psychedelic Psychotherapy: Ethnic and Racial Themes from Three Black Women Therapists paper that Dr. Mona cited