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About Frank Echenhofer. |
What really got me started in my current work was a very early experience. I had a difficult childhood and nature became my teacher. In natural settings, I had profound experiences of oneness that became my way of calming myself — my way of surviving. Those experiences stayed with me until I went to school. They dissippated, then reemerged when I went to university and started studying psychology. Later, these childhood experiences were very similar to what I experienced taking LSD for the first time, which I followed with spiritual practice. Ever since then, I’ve been committed to finding ways of healing for myself and others combining these strands of psychedelics, the best of psychology, and the best of spiritual practice.
I received a doctorate in psychology from Temple University, trained in neuroscience and then did research in India with the Dalai Lama’s guidance studying advanced meditators. I studied Tibetan Buddhism intensively, and was a founding member of a Tibetan Buddhist center in Philadelphia with my Lama, Losang Samten. I also studied and practiced Sufism for 12 years. For more than 18 years, I have been a professor of clinical psychology in the PsyD program at the California Institute for Integral Studies, and have done both neuroscience and qualitative research in Brazil and Peru, examining the benefits of ayahuasca. I am now doing research in Peru on the San Pedro cactus, and investigating and developing an approach to healing centered around love, trust, non-judgment, relaxation and play that honors the individuality of each person.
I received a doctorate in psychology from Temple University, trained in neuroscience and then did research in India with the Dalai Lama’s guidance studying advanced meditators. I studied Tibetan Buddhism intensively, and was a founding member of a Tibetan Buddhist center in Philadelphia with my Lama, Losang Samten. I also studied and practiced Sufism for 12 years. For more than 18 years, I have been a professor of clinical psychology in the PsyD program at the California Institute for Integral Studies, and have done both neuroscience and qualitative research in Brazil and Peru, examining the benefits of ayahuasca. I am now doing research in Peru on the San Pedro cactus, and investigating and developing an approach to healing centered around love, trust, non-judgment, relaxation and play that honors the individuality of each person.