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Becca Kacanda

@beccakacanda.bsky.social
195 followers 165 following 346 posts

Art Therapist | Coordinator for Psychedelic Lived Experiences. Bridging Clinical Science and Lived Expertise in Psychedelic Care | MDMA-AT trial participant . Milwaukee, WI

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Reposted by Becca Kacanda
Pedram Dara @pedramdara.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
New paper: Lived experience should be treated as evidence, not dismissed as anecdote. My new Perspective article is now published in @FrontPubHealth Lived experience as systems-relevant evidence in psychedelic public health. www.frontiersin.org/journals/pub... #psychedelics #publichealth
Screenshot of a Frontiers in Public Health article page showing the Perspective article “Lived experience as systems-relevant evidence in psychedelic public health,” published September 14, 2026, by Pedram Dara of Psychedelic Lived Experiences in Ottawa, Canada. The image includes the Frontiers in Public Health journal branding, publication details, article title, author photo and name, and journal metrics.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
This opening of the 1619 Project has long been the most ringing sentence for me about this country, its founding, and its founding document. Its truth could apply to everyone who sought to broaden and deepen equality and rights.
Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. lack mericans have fought to make them true. --essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
In all seriousness tho, if anyone can get a hold of a Johnson & Johnson Spravato coloring book, hit me up- I am very curious
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Psymposia was right, psychedelic therapy is the new MKUltra. Patients say J&J’s Spravato coloring books are packed with subliminal fascist messaging. Apparently if you shade the mandala just right, a cartoon eagle resembling Peter Thiel appears and calmly reminds you that resistance is inefficient
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
How MDMA Inspired Me to Become an Art Therapist: Part 1; The “Inner Healing Intelligence” Is Creativity open.substack.com/pub/vesselsa...
open.substack.com
How MDMA Inspired Me to Become an Art Therapist: Part 1
The “Inner Healing Intelligence” Is Creativity
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 14/12/2025
Two victims of previous school shootings — Mia Tretta, who was shot in the stomach in 2019 at Saugus High School, and Zoe Weissman, who survived the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — are now at Brown. Gun violence is out of control in this country.
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
Exciting news 💓
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Psychedelic Lived Experiences @psych-lived-exp.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
Humbled and grateful for reflections like this. When a community comes together to center lived experience, the field shifts toward more human, patient-centered care. Thank you, Sara Garcia Velazquez, MD, for sharing this comment. #LivedExperience #psychedelics #ClinicalResearch #ClinicalTrials
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
Was a pleasure to have been able to speak at length with @hamiltonmorris.bsky.social about my clinical trial experience, impressions of Psymposia, and the importance of listening to clinical trials participants . www.patreon.com/posts/144155...
patreon.com
POD 135: [VIDEO] Listening to psychedelic clinical trial participants with Becca Kacanda | Hamilton Morris
Get more from Hamilton Morris on Patreon
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Psychedelic Lived Experiences @psych-lived-exp.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
Janis Phelps, PhD on What Made Psychedelic Lived Experiences Summit Remarkable Here is her perspective on why the Psychedelic Lived Experiences Summit mattered and why this level of openness is so essential. 🎟️ Recordings are available now with the All Access Pass. Link in bio. #psychedelics
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Psychedelic Lived Experiences @psych-lived-exp.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
[LIVE PANEL] Centering Lived Experience in Psychedelic Research and Training What happens when lived experience becomes evidence? Get Your All Access Pass: psychedeliclivedexperiences.com/summit-upgrade 🗓️ Nov 21, 2025 ⏰ 12 PM PST | 3 PM EST | 21:00 CET #psychedelics #livedexperience
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Great interview with @pedramdara.bsky.social , former MAPS MDMA clinical trial participant and founder of @psych-lived-exp.bsky.social 💓 open.substack.com/pub/themicro...
open.substack.com
What is psychedelic therapy really like? 5 Questions with the director of Psychedelic Lived Experiences Pedram Dara
Dara discusses why researchers need to listen more to the stories of clinical trial participants.
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Reposted by Becca Kacanda
Pedram Dara @pedramdara.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
What could clinical science learn if it began by listening to the people it's meant to help?
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Psychedelic Lived Experiences @psych-lived-exp.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
Free Live Event: Psychedelic Integration through Storytelling, Coaching, and Creativity Join @mareesastertz.bsky.social Daniel Shankin from @tamintegration.bsky.social @onapraderas.bsky.social, and Jimmy Nguyen exploring best practices for psychedelic integration that go beyond therapy.
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Don Schreiber/Methane Mad Man @vivarioarriba.bsky.social · 11/10/2025
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Psychedelic Lived Experiences @psych-lived-exp.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
The Untold Stories of MDMA-assisted Therapy for PTSD Meet Becca Kacanda, M.S., and learn from her lived experience as a participant in phase 3 MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD clinical trials. 🎟️ Claim Your Free Pass: psychedeliclivedexperiences.com/summit #psychedelics #LivedExperience
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Join us for the first ever Psychedelic Lived Experiences Summit to hear from 50+ patients, therapists & researchers. Explore the potential and limits of psychedelic treatments with raw stories that move beyond hype and fear, highlight complexity, and deepen understanding. Thrilled to take part.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
You almost never see/hear/read a person-on-the-street quote in which that person is saying "Yeah, immigrants are great." If it hates it rates just like if it bleeds it leads, and we get a disproportionate number of right-wingers sharing their hate and disinformation about immigration from msm.
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Psychedelic Science & Policy @psysci.pyxorium.com · 06/08/2025
Dr. Lawrence Leeman of the University of New Mexico describes how the REKINDLE clinical trial will test the effectiveness of RE104 (a synthetic prodrug similar to psilocybin) in treating patients who have received a life-altering disease diagnosis.
hscnews.unm.edu
UNM Scientists Test Experimental Psychedelic Drug to Alleviate the Emotional Toll of a Life-Threatening Diagnosis
University of New Mexico researchers are joining a multi-site clinical trial of an experimental psychedelic drug intended to alleviate the mental suffering many patients experience when they receive a...
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
I did a brief livestream w/Joe at @psychedelicstoday.bsky.social about my perspective as a MAPS MDMA-AT trial participant and perceptions of Psymposia’s critiques and methods. This topic is heavy and complex and difficult to talk about. Please excuse the technical difficulties…link in comments
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
I posted to Twitter for what looks like the fifth time this year yesterday. Checked back today and the post has 39,000 likes, 3.2k retweets — and 9 replies, and 4 quote tweets. I'm sorry folks those numbers ain't real. Bordering on a statistical impossibility. It's gotta be almost entirely fake.
A twitter post of "No Way to Prevent This" in reply to an NYT headline that's nearly identical.
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Matt Wall @mattwall.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Interesting... MDMA-assisted therapy as a treatment for major depressive disorder: proof of principle study www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
MDMA-assisted therapy as a treatment for major depressive disorder: proof of principle study | The British Journal of Psychiatry | Cambridge Core
MDMA-assisted therapy as a treatment for major depressive disorder: proof of principle study
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
Wow this article packs it all in, quite impressed! Not thrilled about the MAHA correlation I must say..this will be interesting. www.wired.com/story/psyche...
wired.com
Psychedelic Therapy Crashed and Burned. MAHA Might Bring It Back
Abuse allegations and infighting helped kill a campaign to legalize MDMA for medical use. Trumpworld is giving the therapy’s advocates hope for a second shot.
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
I was told today that “lived experience is not a serious perspective”. It seems that many people aren’t aware that the field of mental health is largely based upon subjective experience, feelings, and plain observations. Lived experience runs the show. This is not hard science, folks… sorry
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
I’m so glad I refused to leave this unusually friendly unclaimed kitty out on the street ( she was following us around at a block party) . Although only 6 lbs and approx 10 months old, she was PREGNANT 😭 . Baby girl is now spayed and we are fostering her until she’s adopted. 💕 meet Angelica 🥰
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
A Thrifting Mystery, Solved: The Midwest Grotto Tradition and Catherine Bastian’s incredible Ham Can Shrines. ( by me on Substack) open.substack.com/pub/vesselsa...
open.substack.com
The Midwest Grotto Tradition and Catherine Bastian’s incredible Ham Can Shrines
This piece includes a re-published guest blog post I made for Spaces Archives in 2020 about Catherine Bastian’s Ham Can Shrines. It feels like a good time to share this again because the John Michael ...
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Sam Woolfe @samwoolfe.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
I wrote about the strange writing made up by outsider artist James Hampton, which researchers have referred to as "the written equivalent of 'speaking in tongues'."
samwoolfe.com
Hamptonese: The Asemic Writing of James Hampton
James Hampton (1909–1964) was an American outsider artist. He worked as a janitor, and in his spare time, in secrecy, he built a large assemblage of religious art, made from scavenged materials: cardb...
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
Added a very brief TL:DR synopsis in the comments section, but if this topic interests you I recommend reading the whole thing. And nope, this isn’t about taking sides, it’s about adding another important perspective to the multifaceted narrative.
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
Oof, I did it…. my first Substack post. More to come (although hopefully on more fun topics). The Watchdogs Need Watchdogs, Too; A Perspective on Psymposia from a former MAPS MDMA clinical trial participant substack.com/@vesselsandv...
substack.com
The Watchdogs Need Watchdogs, Too; A Perspective on Psymposia from a former MAPS MDMA clinical trial participant
Critiques are generally a good thing— but over-applying harsh, totalizing critiques has a downside too; it creates new harms and buries the good work along with the bad.
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Max Berger @maxberger.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
Musk will be responsible for the deaths of 14,000,000 people. That’s a genocidal amount of death.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
A lot of this country’s problems boil down to straight white men who see themselves as some sort of default “normal” but any variation on that as “an identity” that is “political”
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Matthew Clair @mathuclair.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
“Trump supporters were [are] willing to put their own lives on the line in support of their [white supremacist] political beliefs” www.basicbooks.com/titles/jonat...
basicbooks.com
Dying of Whiteness
A physician's "provocative" (Boston Globe) and "timely" (Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times Book Review) account of how right-wing ...
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
A good reminder that the watchdogs need watchdogs too - sometimes the skeletons in their closet are a mirror reflecting what they purport to be so strongly against…
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Dan Friedman @dfriedman.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
This guy is working for the Justice Department: "As violence erupted, his charging document said, he told other rioters who were attacking law enforcement officers, 'Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Kill ’em!'" www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/u...
nytimes.com
Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioter Who Threatened Police Joins Justice Dept.
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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 27/06/2025
"For the child born this summer in Texas, whose parents receive no documents, whose name never appears in any system, and who grows up asking why she can’t go on field trips, apply for scholarships, or open a bank account, the consequences are not legal theory. They are her life."
slate.com
The United States Is About to Embark on a Terrifying Experiment in Mass Statelessness
This scenario, until recently, might have read like a dystopian projection. But after the court’s decision on Friday, it is no longer hypothetical.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
Sadly not a new phenomenon. Many veterans have been deported over the years, often because of drug problems they acquired after PTSD from their time in the service.
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
basking in the afterglow of #PS2025 ! I‘d share photos of my copanelists but they’ve requested some privacy 👁️ We’re thankful for the heartfelt support & connection w/new trial participants. The entire conference was so inspiring, thoughtful, and filled with hope. Thank you @mapsorg.bsky.social
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Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 22/06/2025
AOC: “It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.”
The President's disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers.
He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations.
It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
I’m so excited to share I’ll be speaking at #PS2025 (June 19 at 2:30 PM on Rick Doblin's stage) in Denver, sharing insights on lived experience in psychedelic care. I'm part of a groundbreaking panel, a first at Psychedelic Science led by MDMA-assisted therapy trial participants.
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Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
"She was also Gaza’s youngest influencer, offering practical survival tips for daily life under bombardment, such as advice on how to cook with improvised methods when there was no gas. 'I try to bring a bit of joy to the other children so that they can forget the war. '”
theguardian.com
Gaza’s youngest influencer aged 11 among children killed by Israeli strikes
Yaqeen Hammad offered tips for surviving life under bombardment and is just one of dozens of minors who have died
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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
It's not really deportation if people are sent to countries where they never lived. It's a human trafficking ring. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
theguardian.com
US ‘illegally deported’ Vietnamese and Burmese migrants to South Sudan
Immigrant rights advocates say White House violated court order and ask judge to order nearly a dozen people’s return
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Max Wolff @trpwolff.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
Finally, leading psychotherapy researchers begin to engage with psychedelic therapy. This is so desperately needed. Let's hope for more to come!
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
There’s been a lot of criticism of PAT trials for being “functionally unblinded” meaning px can guess whether or not they got placebo. Do we even had hard data for this or are we assuming? Ive been interviewing clinical trial px and actually, surprised at finding that the contrary is true!
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Senator Chris Van Hollen @vanhollen.senate.gov · 17/04/2025
I've been in El Salvador all day fighting for the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia. The Trump Administration can lie all they want, but the Court said they failed to show he was part of MS-13. This is about bringing home a man they ADMIT should never have been abducted. I won't rest until then.
youtube.com
I've been in El Salvador all day fighting for the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia
YouTube video by Senator Chris Van Hollen
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Senator Chris Van Hollen @vanhollen.senate.gov · 18/04/2025
I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.
Photo of Senator Chris Van Hollen with Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
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Eirini K Argyri @eirini-k-a.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
New pre-print out 🌍✨🌌 'Learning from Boundlessness: Psychedelic induced awe and epistemic shifts towards a holistic worldview' doi.org/10.21203/rs.... We explored how awe during psychedelic experiences relates to lasting shifts in sense of self, other, and reality
doi.org
Learning from Boundlessness: Psychedelic induced awe and epistemic shifts towards a holistic worldview
Psychedelic substances are increasingly recognized for their potential to catalyse transformative shifts in worldviews. Central to these transformations are states of awe, a self-transcendent, epistem...
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Sam Thielmonster @samthielman.com · 26/03/2025
Bombed the guy’s girlfriend’s home and fucking bragged about it. Send them to The Hague.
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
Unidentified men grabbing someone off the street and putting her in a car because she wrote an op-Ed. This as flatly authoritarian as anything we’ve seen in this country in a very long time.
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Becca Kacanda @beccakacanda.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
I recently found out that Sasha Sisko, who weaponized ideas published by @psymposia.bsky.social to try to gaslight me about my clinical trial experience, has a criminal history of stalking and sexual exploitation- the very thing they claim to be a watchdog for. Why is no one talking about this?
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