Acknowledgement
Our organization would’ve never gotten off the ground and running without the immense love and labor of so many in this community. We feel grateful to all the organizations and people who have given us support, guidance, feedback, and wisdom along the way, including Healing Realms, Polaris Insight Center, and Raquel Bennett from KRIYA Institute (who originally helped train our co-founders).
We’d like to give a special acknowledgment to Sage Integrative Health (co-founded by Genesee Herzberg and Julie Megler), an organization that helped pave the way for the work we’re now able to do. We’d also like to acknowledge the myriad contributions made by Genesee Herzberg, PsyD, as our founding Executive Director, and Jason Butler, PhD, our founding Training Director. Dr. Herzberg and Dr. Butler alongside Sage Integrative Health were key contributors in the development of the original Sage Institute vision, mission, and brand, and played an integral role in developing the organizational systems, protocols, curriculum, and training that Alchemy continues to build on today.
We’d also like to graciously acknowledge Heather “Dez” Valdez, LCSW, one of our original co-founders who poured hours of labor into developing our quality assurance systems, prioritizing client safety and infrastructure so we can continue doing this work in a safe and ethical manner. Shanna Butler, PhD, another of our co-founders, paved the way for strong clinical systems we still integrate into our work today. Our other co-founder, Irina Alexander, LMFT, continues to serve as our organization’s Clinical Director to this day.
While not an official co-founder, we would be nowhere without the endless contributions of former Board Chair, Kat Conour, who’s supported the organization since the beginning. In addition, we feel deeply grateful to the rest of our board members who’ve poured so many unpaid hours into this difficult revolutionary work. Specifically, Charlie Bathgate, Ismail Ali, and Sylver Quevedo are previous board members who supported Alchemy in navigating many challenging hurdles in becoming one of the first nonprofit organizations centering equitable psychedelic therapy.
As an organization, we pay Shuumi Land Tax and share immense gratitude for the Ohlone peoples, whose stolen land our office stands on. Psychedelic-assisted therapy is a movement originally born from indigenous cultures, practices, and beliefs. Please consider contributing to #landback initiatives and to conserving indigenous biocultures.
