Meet Our Team
Our Founders' Stories
Dori and Shannon have walked parallel, but different, paths through academic, clinical, and psychospiritual worlds. It took time for their individual worlds to merge into creating Elemental Psychedelics, and in that time of relationship-building, trust-building, and listening, they each discovered in the other a creative spark and grounded alignment that amplified itself with each small collaboration they embarked upon.
Dori and Shannon both come from academic worlds of science, research, and traditional higher education. Dori owns a successful group therapy practice. Shannon was a tenured professor at a state university. Both have explored extensively on their own the realms of the psychospiritual, of connection to earth, spirit, and their own inner lives, and of honoring what they find to be sacred in the world. The latter work became their bridges to what they found missing from their more traditional professional backgrounds and practices.
In forming Elemental Psychedelics, Dori and Shannon listened intently to their own inner guidance to understand what exactly wanted to come through in this particular collaboration. With one foot in each world, Dori and Shannon aim to bridge traditional mental health professionals and systems with safe, ethical, and respectful psychospiritual psychedelic work.
They realize the task at hand is to break down internalized colonialism to the best of their ability, reconnect with their roots and the land they reside on, and be of service to their individual and collective healing. They also understand the systems of capitalism, commodification, neoliberalism, and colonialism that most of us are all deeply embedded in and, at some level, must operate within even as we try to dismantle it. Their combined commitment is to stay present and grounded as they also take bold steps toward being of service to the psychedelic movement through training and mentorship that bridges worlds. With trust and humility, they strive to be good stewards of the transformation that yearns to have a more powerful presence in the world.
