About The Collective

Co-Facilitator

My Health 101

As for my professional credentials, I am a board-certified Psychiatrist with an additional certification in Functional Medicine and a degree in Chinese Medicine. I currently hold the role of Chief Medical Officer for Eliot Human Services, a psychiatric non-profit organization serving over 25,000 clients in various settings. In addition, I run a private practice exclusively focused on providing a truly individualized functional & integrative healing approach.

As for my experience with Psychedelics, I have learned how to conduct legal ceremonies & hold space outside the US. Within the US, I provide individual and group ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP). Years before Spravato, I successfully pioneered Ketamine treatment programs for clients struggling with severe mental illness and in group home settings.

As for my personal development in this space, I focus on supporting the sacred & embodied lenses of knowing and healing. Working with these sacred medicines cannot be taught with results from research settings alone. It requires a dedication to one’s personal journey and the ability to embody the process of moving toward and through challenges. Additionally, this path requires a continuing commitment to work on increasing one's awareness and capacity to hold a space and hold the struggles that manifest in our clients as they move through to rejoin their true path. I enjoy caring for clients with a broad variety of conditions. As a gay man, I feel that I have much to offer in sharing my work with my LGBTQ+ peers. My own challenges with growing up gay added to my anguish & suicidality as an overly sensitive adolescent and young adult. In contrast to what I was told at that time, it was never a major depressive disorder, but a lack of acceptance, patience, proper guidance and understanding of the surrounding community. I see that many of my gay peers never had the chance or took the time to revisit and reshape the consequences of these deferred challenges. Despite many celebrated new freedoms, our gay culture is not much healthier than one or two decades ago. To repair and progress, we need other gay men to mentor and help to reshape our emotional understanding and reactivity patterns within our gay culture. Our retreat offerings are designed to create space for healing in this area and will hopefully also become part of healing our broader community.

Co-Facilitator

SpertusMD

I am a physician board-certified in Family Medicine, Integrative Medicine, and Lifestyle Medicine, and with fellowship training in medical education and Primary Care Psychiatry. I am currently working as a Chief Clinician Well-Being Officer (CWO), focusing on clinician wellness and organizational burnout mitigation, and in integrative Whole Health approaches for chronic pain. With my background in Integrative Medicine, I have become interested particularly in holistic approaches to healing that focus on the complex interaction between the mind, body, and spirit together, working toward harmony.

Throughout my life and professional journey, I have been following the path that has led me now to psychedelic medicine and to our retreat offerings. As a gay man, I have experienced deep personal struggles related to self-acceptance and belonging, while also exploring the often harsh nature of societal expectations related to gender and sexuality. From my own life as well as in my clinical practice, I have witnessed other gay and LGBTQ+ individuals struggle with their own sense of shame, lack of self-esteem, rejection, isolation, and at times destructive behaviors, often in search of a validation that has never been fully realized. Unfortunately, often these struggles—along with other factors—become severe and can disrupt one's life and self-construct. I have also witnessed the amazing capacity of LGBTQ+ individuals to form meaningful communities and establish chosen families, build resilience, and most importantly, to thrive. I am a strong believer in group work and the retreat model, which can often serve as an antidote to the cold, forlorn, individual medical encounter. In my own group and retreat work, I have experienced the immense healing that can occur by coming together and simply being. By offering our retreats for gay and queer men led by other gay men, I am hopeful that we can promote a welcoming and healing space for change. I am full of enthusiasm and gratitude to be able to bring the retreat model, ketamine-assisted therapy, and other holistic approaches together to facilitate thriving.

Co-Facilitator

JPF Therapy

I am a therapist practicing in New Jersey, and have specialized in working with LGBTQ+ clients for over ten years. Throughout the years, I have witnessed in gay men's experiences the themes of internalized homophobia, shame, and rejection from family and religious communities. I often see how many gay men seek to cope with these wounds by developing addictive behaviors (addictions to substances, sex, food, and even fitness), and many have reported feeling isolated or not belonging to a gay community. I also see how profound levels of resilience and compassion have also been heightened among this population. I work with my clients on learning how to use their resilience to establish the intimate and fulfilling relationships with partners and other gay men that they are wanting, which typically means learning how to heal shame so that emotionally safe and healthy connections can be formed.

As a gay man, I understand and have lived/am living the ongoing journey that leads to self-love and acceptance, and the challenges and joys that are part of this experience. I feel that retreats can allow gay men to come together to practice being their authentic selves in a space that is safe where all feelings will be witnessed and honored. A space where no one needs to impress—or compete—with anyone else. Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) can help each person drop their defenses and can allow for more deeply intimate conversations and connections to be made, as each participant supports one another to integrate whatever meaningful changes might need to be made to advance feelings of self-love, and the ability to create healthy and fulfilling relationships and community.

Co-Facilitator

Medicine Re(de)fined

l am a dual board-certified physician in Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, as well as a trained psychedelic medicine provider. My career as an anesthesiologist has uniquely prepared me for the world of journey work, ketamine, and psychedelic medicine. Years of managing patients' consciousness during surgery, from induction to emergence, honed my ability to create a safe and supportive environment. I have come to understand the importance of presence, titration of medication (including ketamine, a classic anesthetic), and monitoring physiological changes – skills directly transferable to psychedelic experiences. Most importantly, I have learned to hold space for individuals as they embark on their surgeries or as they share their suffering related to chronic pain and life situations. Through my unique perspective, I strive to show up at the point where spirit meets medicine guided by a strong desire to connect deeply with clients as their journeys unfold.

Early formative experiences fostered within me a curiosity towards the depths of healing and I have continued to follow a path illuminated by both physical and spiritual healing. With an intention to find authenticity and meaning in medicine, I recognize the importance of individual experiences and the multifaceted nature of healing. I am committed to fostering a more holistic approach led by the belief that healing is a personal journey. There is no one path for everyone, but through curiosity, openness, and self-exploration we can all move forward on our journey to well-being.

Through my own journey navigating life as a gay man, I have developed a strong trust in the power of community. Being in a loving and fully accepting space can unleash our inner healer allowing for deeper, more meaningful connection and movement towards wholeness. With our retreats, it is my desire to create a truly inclusive, safe, and healing space where spirit can be free and everyone has the opportunity to begin a powerfully transformative process.