Psychedelic Holiday Wishes From SoundMind

Dear SoundMind Community,

2020 has been a challenging year for so many of us, but also a time of reflection and renewal, a time to mobilize our resources toward an exciting future. At SoundMind, we have continued our work to make psychedelic healing accessible to all, and we remain forever optimistic.

Here's what we did in 2020

In face of the COVID-19 pandemic, SoundMind pivoted quickly to serve and educate our community remotely, offering clinical training and free psychedelic and mental health resources to the public.

Solidarity Free Webinar Series

Over the summer we launched a year-long series of free webinars about mental health and psychedelics, featuring leaders in the field such as Rick Doblin and Marcela Ot'alora of MAPS and Michael Baime from the University of Pennsylvania. The series will run until June 2021. Explore Solidarity Series here.

Courses: Introduction to Psychedelic Therapies

We have gotten an overwhelming amount of interest in from therapists looking to learn more about psychedelics. We launched a course for clinicians and invited them to meet leaders in the field. We completed a class with a cohort of thirteen therapists and now have fifteen more enrolled. Read more or apply for future courses here.

As part of the new CARES act, $300 or more of your donations in 2020 will be deducted from your taxes, meaning that taxes you already pay could instead be allocated to SoundMind— an organization with promising impact for communities most in need as we enter 2021.

Here's what we will do in 2021

After a successful 2020, we have ambitious plans for ourselves in 2021!

Finish Renovation of our Clinic Building

We are nearly done with renovating our clinic building in West Philadelphia! It is so incredibly exciting. The center will include eight clinical offices and three apartments to be used for overnight stays after psychedelic healing sessions. The clinical offices are finished, but the wheelchair accessible space on the first floor still needs to be completed. Read more about the clinic here.

Annual Psychedelic Ethics Symposium

We will host our first-ever Annual SoundMind Ethics Symposium this spring. The symposium will bring together important thinkers in the space to highlight how ethics can inform the direction of psychedelic healing, treatment, and representation for years to come. See our previous work on ethics here and sign up to receive more info on the Ethics Symposium here.

New Course: Psychedelic Contemplative Practices

We will expand our offering for clinicians and our first new course of 2021 will be 'Essential Contemplative Practices for Psychedelic Therapists'. This will be instructed by Hannah McLane along with other leaders in meditation and psychedelics to create a dynamic 12-week experiential course for future psychedelic therapists. Read more here.

Animations for Psychedelic Access

Animated videos are an incredible way to educate and work to level the playing field regarding health equity. Learn more about this project here. Our most recent animation is narrated by Rick Doblin of MAPS and offers accessible information about MDMA for PTSD to people of diverse backgrounds, levels of education, and learning styles. Read more and watch our videos here.

We are so excited to bring all these new developments to you, and we hope you’ll consider helping us in our mission to bring transformative psychedelic treatments to those in need. Your generosity will help us build a wheelchair accessible space, continue our free educational offerings, provide scholarships for our clinician courses and retreats, and so much more.

Please consider donating!

In gratitude and solidarity,

Hannah C. McLane, MD, MA, MPH

and the SoundMind Center Team