Meet UPRA: Elizabeth Ames
"Psychedelic assisted therapy opens the door to many people who want to get rid of endless suffering"
UPRA co-founder Elizabeth Ames on her experience and expectations
"My name is Elizabeth, and in November I hope to return to Kyiv and stay for a couple of years," Elizabeth Ames introduces herself in our interview. "I've done a lot of things throughout my career. Currently, I am focused on alleviating the trauma caused by the war in Ukraine, including working to legalize psychedelic therapy in Ukraine, with a particular focus on MDMA and helping veterans with PTSD."
Elizabeth Ames received her high school education at Lincoln High School in Providence, Rhode Island. Then came Yale, Harvard Business School, and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Her career path has included retail, public service, social enterprise consulting, venture capital, and her favorite job was starting the Peace Corps in Ukraine. She is now the CEO and co-founder of Heal Ukraine Trauma (HUT).
I first came to Kyiv in 1992, when I was part of the team that launched the first Peace Corps volunteer program in the former Soviet Union. I lived and worked in Kyiv for most of the 90s, and I also spent two years as a venture capitalist in Moscow. After that, I moved to Boston. But even there, I kept my love for Ukraine and my friends, and I returned to Kyiv for three weeks in 2013-2014, when I felt it was important to see the history that the Maidan was making in person. In Ukraine, I learned firsthand what PTSD is. I lived with this diagnosis for 20 years; my life was destroyed. It destroyed my career. I spent decades searching for treatments that could end my suffering. I finally realized that I would not survive if I did not stop bathing my body in stress hormones. I read Michael Pollan's book, I realized that I had nothing left to lose and sought out the therapeutic underground. It took a lot of effort-it wasn't a "one-and-done" thing-but honestly, I got my life back, and that's a miracle I never expected. Now I wake up every day with gratitude.
Together with Oleg Orlov, I founded UPRA in April 2021. I hope that UPRA will eventually open the door for people to be able to get rid of their endless suffering, just like me. Life is so much fun and amazing when your brain doesn't malfunction and cause you to live in a constant state of silent terror.
I spent my teenage years in the 70s, and there was still a lot of social hangover from the 60s, from the golden era of psychedelics, about the personal growth that could be gained through respectful work with these substances. When I was 12 years old, I received for Christmas «The Last Whole Earth Catalog», and it opened me up to meditation, Zen, yoga, ecology, and great tools to live outside of the California hippie movement-it was like the hippie internet in book format. A copy of this book is available for purchase on Amazon.
I moved to Kyiv in 1992, one of the first 70 Americans to live in post-Soviet Ukraine. I was struck by how the trauma of World War II 50 years ago still affects family systems and the mental health of individuals. Oleh and I started UPRA to unlock the transformative potential of a combination of medication and therapy. When a person's brain heals, their compassion and creativity are also unleashed, instead of simply treating symptoms. This is important not only for the happiness of the individual and the community, but now it is extremely important for the nation.
Human resources are Ukraine's greatest treasure.
The 10% of human capabilities that are "unlocked" after PTSD treatment will play a huge role in the recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine. Imagine a Ukraine with a fully liberated and liberated human spirit! It will happen - and it will be incredible.
Watch and read
BPRG website. Their video presentations represent the best of the US psychedelic legal world/science. Some of them I have watched many times. Robin Carhart-Harris's lecture impressed me. So enjoy.
MAPS Web site. The movement would not exist without Rick Doblin and MAPS. There is tons of useful information on these pages, as the MAPS philosophy is based on openness and transparency.
Tom Wolfe,«Electric refrigeration acid test». The book is about Ken Kesey, the Merry Go Rounds, the Grateful Dead, and how LSD escaped from laboratories on the West Coast in the 60s. A must-read if you want to learn about the roots of the California counterculture of the 1960s, how it looked, tasted, and sounded.