EOL and Existential Distress Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Training — July 10 – 13, 2025

Sunrise Ranch

Loveland, Colorado

Sunrise Ranch is located in the beautiful foothills of the Rocky Mountains about one hour from Denver. Besides being a resort and retreat center, it is also an intentional spiritual community and a working sustainable ranch. The farm-to-table food is delicious and inspiring in quality.

**Tuition price does not include accommodations or meals.**

In addition to making tuition payment to PRATI, all participants must register with Sunrise Ranch separately, as they charge by the bed, not by the room. This payment will also includes all of the meals you will be receiving during the training. Accommodation options include shared and private rooms. We require all trainees to stay onsite for the duration of the training course to ensure safety and support group cohesion. Additionally, we do not allow family and friends to stay with trainees at Sunrise Ranch during the training experience, as this is disruptive to the container.

Course Director: Christine Pateros, MA, RN, is a global spiritual guide, ceremonialist, psychedelic-assisted nurse therapist, artist, author, healer, teacher and presenter. Chris serves as Course Director for PRATI’s End Of Life Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Training, and is Lead Faculty and Operations Director for other PRATI offerings. Grounding in ecocentric ritual, ceremony and practices, and called to existential work, Chris’ seeking and mystical soul-seeing has awakened her spirit to support others to own and share their potent gifts in the world by guiding individuals and groups in embodied conscious living and dying practices through her private practice based in Denver, Colorado. Chris is a lineage carrier of the Qero mystics of the Peruvian Andes. She is a trained and certified ketamine-assisted therapist (Ketamine Training Center, 2019) and Ecopsychologist (MA 2022) and is MAPS MDMA trained (2024). As a mother who has lost a child, Chris is intimate with living and thriving with grief as a part of the medicine of life that she carries in her work in the world. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado with regular time spent in Chicago and Kythira, Greece.

Medical Lead: German Ascani (he/him), MD, MS, is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychedelic mental health educator and consultant. He feels passionate about the potential that psychedelic and natural medicines have in nurturing and supporting our inherent drive towards psychological, emotional and spiritual growth. He has worked extensively with underserved, poor, homeless and marginalized communities providing patient care and clinical leadership in various roles throughout his career. He is presently in private practice in Denver through his clinic, Evolve Mind Wellness, which he founded in 2018. He has ample experience using various ketamine treatment modalities in psychiatry and adheres to a harm reduction and integration approach when using psychedelic medicine to treat refractory mental health disorders. He is committed to increasing the skillset, knowledge and experience of health professionals for delivering psychedelic assisted treatments. He is grateful to be a core trainer and lead medical consultant for PRATI and other prominent psychedelic teaching and clinical groups. He has research experience in KAP (Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy) with the Ketamine Research Foundation (KRF) and MDMA-AT for PTSD through MAPS/Lykos.

Medical Support: Dr. Arsalan Azam is an emergency medicine physician and founder of Daydream MD, an integrative mental/functional health practice based in San Diego which offers ketamine assisted psychotherapy in individual and group settings. He has previously worked in international development overseeing urban community health workers and rural health insurance programs in India. He later worked at trauma centers in East Harlem and Harlem providing care to underserved communities in New York City. His mission is to innovate new models of care in the mental health and psychedelic medicine space, both at his own organization and with partners across the country. Dr. Azam works actively in the end of life space as a consulting physician with Medical Aid in Dying programs.

Mary Cosimano, LMSW, has been with the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research since 2000 when they began research with psilocybin. She is currently a Psychedelic Session Facilitator and has served as Director of Clinical Services and as a research coordinator. She has been involved with all the psilocybin studies and has conducted over 500 study sessions including Club Drug studies with Salvia Divinorum and Dextromethorphan. Mary has trained post doctorate fellows, faculty, clinicians, and research assistants as guides and taught individual and group meditation to breast cancer patients in a Johns Hopkins research study. She is a teacher and mentor at California Institute to Integral Studies for their Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research (CPTR) certificate program and conducts trainings for therapists in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. In 2003 she started a meditation group for employees in her department. She also has 15 years of experience with direct patient care as a hospice volunteer.

Wilhelmina De Castro, LCSW, (She/They) serves as PRATI's Executive Director and is trained in KAP (Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy) through PRATI and MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy through MAPS. They support organizations in building justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives, systems, and cultures. Wilhelmina also works as a lead therapist in a Psilocybin Phase 3 Clinical Trial for Treatment-Resistant Depression and sits on the Advisory Board for Thank You Life. As a Queer, Filipinx, non-binary person, they are deeply committed to anti-oppressive work, diversifying the psychedelic space, and uplifting the voices of BIPOC and LGBTQIA2s+ people. Wilhelmina is currently practicing KAP with individuals, groups, and families, and offering low-cost/donation-based KAP. She specializes in the areas of anxiety, depression, trauma, and life transitions. She has significant experience in working with the Queer folx and People of the Global majority and communities that have been impacted by global and systemic oppression.

Darren Fisher, RN, BSN, has served as a hospice nurse for adult and pediatric patients for the past 11 years. His study of psychology and Buddhism has shaped his holistic approach to patient care. After learning of the beneficial outcomes in clinical studies of psychedelic medicines for those with terminal illness, Darren attended PRATI’s Foundational Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy program in 2021 and has since become faculty for PRATI’s End-Of-Life/Existential Distress Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Training. In addition to facilitating psychedelic-assisted therapy sessions for non-hospice clients, Darren advocates for the adoption of ketamine-assisted therapy in the palliative care and hospice setting to enhance support to patients and their loved ones and co-created a ketamine therapy pilot at the hospice where he works part-time.

Charlotte Charfen, MD is a board-certified Emergency Physician with over 20 years of experience in the field of Life & Death, living on the Big Island of rural Hawaii. In addition to emergency medicine, she has a private practice focused on end-of-life and serious illness support and helped found the North Hawaii based nonprofit, Life & Death Wellness. Their mission is to educate and support on all of life matters, but especially the end as a method to embrace one's life fully. But it was her patients that taught her the power of psychedelics at end-of-life and prompted her training with PRATI in 2021. Dr. Charfen is convinced that addressing our own mortality in addition to mental, and spiritual poise, are the keys to thriving in our world at any phase of life.

Meghan Fagundes, Ph.D. (she/they) is an Assistant Professor and Licensed Clinical Psychologist from San Diego, California, who teaches doctoral courses in psychological assessment, cognitive and affective psychology, and behavioral neuroscience. Since 2002, they have worked in community-based organizations, outpatient, residential and inpatient facilities, hospitals, and prison, offering clinical services to historically marginalized groups such as those with severe mental illness, co-occurring disorders, the LGBTQIA+ community, low-income and forensic populations.
Dr. Fagundes specializes in integrative somatic trauma therapy, the neurobiology of trauma, and somatic psychedelic therapy. They have completed certificates in ketamine assisted psychotherapy, psychedelic medicine, and psychedelic medicine for end of life and existential distress through the Psychedelic Research and Training Institute (PRATI). In addition, Dr. Fagundes trained in MDMA assisted therapy through the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) education program. They have facilitated consultation groups for the Psychedelic Assisted Therapy program at the Integrative Psychiatry Institute and co-facilitate psychedelic medicine retreats with Integrate Psychedelic Wellness and Education.

Dr. Amezcua, MD, has more than 24 years of experience in health care leadership. Following her medical degree from UNAM, she received postgraduate degree in psychiatry from the National Institute of Psychiatry Juan Ramón de la Fuente with a specialty in adolescents and affective disorders. As a part of her training, she worked on community mental health projects at Veterans Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. Trained in Psychedelics assisted therapy by IPI, she currently teaches courses in medical cannabis, integrative psychiatry and psychedelic medicine. Dr. Amezcua is also an active participant in several community programs and NGOs. Mother, cook, artist and self-declared social phobic.

Event Coordinator: Stephanie Thomas, PharmD, NTP, CGP, is a pharmacist, a certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, and a certified GAPS practitioner focusing on the interplay between nutritional and mental health. In conjunction with the experience she has gained through her 400-hour Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training, she is well versed on the delicate and complex synergy between the gut, mind and body and is passionate about the healing potential these holistic treatment modalities can provide.

$3,300 - Professionals (LPC, LCSW, LMFT, PhD, APN, NP, PA, RN, etc.)

$4,750 - Physicians (MD, DO)

$500 - Scholarship Ticket (Professionals or Physicians)

A portion of tuition fees will be directly paid to the medical provider who will conduct your evaluation and medical services for training experientials.

Cancellation Policy

Full payment deadline: June 2, 2025

I have participated in a variety of KAP trainings through different organizations over the last year and have learned a lot along the way and had lots of good experiences. PRATI's training, however, was above and beyond any expectations I have for quality of information delivered, skillfulness in group facilitation, and the safety of the holding environment for the experiential part of the training. I highly recommend training through PRATI.

- Amy Everson, LMFT

The PRATI organization is powerful, embodied, extremely inclusive and well organized. Highly recommend any training they offer. The staff is so experienced and knowledgeable and a very welcoming community. I can't wait to do more trainings with them!

- Carolyn Cubberly, RN

After having several experiences where I felt ignored and/or harmed in psychedelic training spaces as a Black woman, coming to PRATI was a healing and corrective experience I am so happy to have had. The only program I plan on doing psychedelic trainings with going forward. Thank you!
- Mercedes Hightower, MSW, LCSW-C