Conversation with Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research Staff

Want to meet Dr. Janis Phelps, Director of the Center for Psychedelic research, and members of the Center’s leadership staff? Join us for this exclusive conversation with Dr. Janis Phelps, Dr. Laura Pustarfi and Eric Bottelberghe, RN, MSN, CARN, moderated by Dr. Fahad Khan, certificate graduate and mentor. This event is an opportunity to pose questions about the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research Certificate training program to leadership staff. This event is free and open to everyone.

Meet our Center Staff

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Janis Phelps, Ph.D., is a leader in the field of psychedelic therapy training as the Director of the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies Center. As the Center’s founder, Dr. Phelps developed and launched the first university accredited, post-graduate training program for psychedelic therapy and research. She has held the position of the Dean of Faculty of the six doctoral departments in the CIIS School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Her 2017 journal publication, Developing Guidelines and Competencies for the Training of Psychedelic Therapists, describes best practices in the academic training of medical and mental health professionals in this field. These ideas are further developed in a 2019 chapter on “Training Psychedelic Therapists” in Advances in Psychedelic Medicine, edited by Michael Winkelman and Ben Sessa. Dr. Phelps is a board member of the Heffter Research Institute, which has conducted highly influential psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy research since the 1990’s. A licensed clinical psychologist, she is a key contributor to methods of scaling effective training programs to meet the burgeoning need for well-trained mental health and medical professionals in the field of psychedelic medicine. Dr. Phelps maintains a private clinical practice in Mill Valley, CA.

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Laura Pustarfi, Ph.D., is Director of the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research Certificate Program and adjunct faculty in Philosophy and Religion at CIIS. As Director of the Certificate, she manages the communications, educational and technological administration, and program operations for the certificate. Her scholarly interests include plant studies, integral ecology, psychedelic philosophy, and environmental humanities, especially environmental philosophy, eco-phenomenology, and religion and ecology. She is currently working on a volume co-edited with Dr. David Macauley, The Wisdom of Trees: Thinking Through Arboreality, forthcoming from SUNY Press. Laura has presented at the several conferences on both plant studies and psychedelic-assisted therapy nationally and internationally.

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Eric Bottelberghe, RN, MSN, CARN, is a cis-gendered, heteroflexible, Caucasian, able-bodied person who believes in the values of Beloved Community and the ideals of transforming opposers into friends. He has made a commitment to be reflective and challenge the biases and privileges he holds. As a Registered Nurse, Eric has worked in the diverse fields of hospice, addiction, higher education and ketamine-assisted therapy. Eric earned his master’s degree in Nursing Education at Weber State University. He also holds three separate bachelor’s degrees in Nursing, Philosophy, and Religious Studies. He is a 2021 alumnus of the CPTR program. Eric is married, has 4 children, has an unhealthy passion for collecting books he never finishes, and a hunger to be in the Utah mountains as often as he can. As Instructional Associate with the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research, Eric works with and ensures trainees meet the certificate requirements of the program.

Meet our Moderator

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Fahad Khan, M.D., is a physician, researcher, and teacher. He graduated from medical school at NYU and trained there for residency and fellowship. He earned his first master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and his second master’s from the NYU Clinical and Translational Science Institute. He is licensed and certified in acupuncture from Harvard, yoga from Kripalu, sound meditation by ethnomusicologists, and both psychedelic therapy & sex therapy from CIIS. Over the past two decades he has presented on TV, radio, and at conferences like TEDx. A professor of anesthesiology & pain medicine at the NYU School of Medicine, he lives on the Brooklyn side of the bridge.

About the Program

The Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research Certificate Program serves a growing need for the training of skilled therapist researchers who will ideally seek advanced training for future FDA-approved psychedelic-assisted and entactogen-assisted psychotherapy research, as well as therapeutic work during expanded access clinic research programs. Enrollees are from specific licensed professions in mental health and medicine.

For more information, see the Certificate Program page or download the 2024-2025 Information Packet.