Psychedelic Medicine Medical Interest Group
About the MIG
Psychedelic medicine represents an expanding area of medical practice intersecting psychiatry, addiction medicine, palliative care, neurology, emergency medicine, primary care, GP Psychotherapy, and complementary medicine. It is anticipated that this area of medicine will continue to expand in the coming years based on an increasingly robust body of evidence supporting the efficacy of these compounds to address multiple clinical disorders.
This MIG was established in 2022 as existing OMA sections and MIGs did not address the advocacy needs of physicians in this field of practice, the requirements to provide physician input to the CPSO on standards of care, nor the needs of Ontarians who want safe access to these novel treatments. Our goal is to provide Ontario physicians with a voice in the field of psychedelic medicine.
Meet the Executive
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Chair
Dr. Monique Moller is a Staff Physician at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and a part-time physician with the Substance Use Intervention Team at University Health Network (UHN). She leads the Addiction Consult Service at CAMH and holds a faculty appointment at the University of Toronto as an Assistant Professor in the Division of Mental Health and Addiction, with a cross-appointment in the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology.
Dr. Moller's clinical interest in psychedelic medicine is for the treatment of substance use, mental health and pain disorders. She has completed multiple training programs in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and served as a Teaching Assistant for the Foundations Certificate in Psychedelic Psychotherapy, offered by the UHN Psychedelic Psychotherapy Research Group and the Michener Institute. In 2022–2023, she worked with Field Trip Health, gaining valuable hands-on experience with ketamine-assisted therapy before returning full-time to her academic and hospital roles.
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Vice-Chair
Dr. Sean O'Sullivan practices emergency medicine and psychotherapy in Ontario. In the psychotherapy domain, his initial training was in classical Freudian psychoanalysis with the Irish Psychoanalytical Association, with further training and subsequent certification in Dr. Stanislav Grof's training program for Holotropic Breathwork and psychedelic medicine in California. Dr. O'Sullivan was an early adopter of the Santo Daime path, played a significant role in the process which led to the legalization of Ayahuasca in Canada, within the Santo Daime setting, and led a Santo Daime group for over a dozen years. His current interests involve advocating for the increasing acceptance of psychedelic medicines, and the safe and cogent re-introduction of these useful and intriguing medications into the practice of psychotherapy in Canada.
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Secretary
Dr. Manuela Joannou is a Family Physician and Emergency Physician with a focused practice in psychotherapy. She graduated from the University of Ottawa Medical School in 1990 and Residency in 2023.
Dr. Joannou is the Founder of Project Trauma Support, a Canadian charity addresses PTSD and Moral Injury in medical personnel, military members, veterans and first responders. She began working with ketamine in 2021, and her team has found ketamine assisted psychotherapy in a group setting to be particularly effective for front line personnel. She was invited to travel to Kyiv twice in the last 2 years to present to the Psychiatrists and Psychologists working with the Ukraine Ministry of Defence and the Ukrainian National Guard, and was awarded the King Charles III Coronation Award for her work in March 2025.
Dr. Joannou has been on the OMA Medical Interest Group in Psychedelic Medicine since the summer of 2024 and is currently the secretary.
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Past Chair
Dr. Adam Blackman is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and healthtech entrepreneur focused on mental health innovation. He is the founder of MettaScience, a venture studio dedicated to building the next generation of mental health companies. Adam previously founded MedSleep and co-founded Viv Technologies. He also co-founded the Ontario Medical Association’s Psychedelic Medicine, Medical Interest Group. His clinical practice includes Ketamine-Assisted Therapy, psychodynamic (relational) psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and sleep medicine. He is actively involved in research on psilocybin microdosing for depression.
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Member at Large
Dr. Nikhita Singhal is a PGY6 child and adolescent psychiatry resident at the University of Toronto, where she also completed her general psychiatry residency training. Since being introduced to the field of psychedelic medicine in 2019 when she was entering residency, she has developed a strong interest in pursuing both clinical work and research in this area. She has participated in TheraPsil’s psilocybin-assisted therapy training program as well as the Michener Institute’s inaugural Foundations of Psychedelic Psychotherapy course, and has also collaborated on multiple related publications including a systematic review of study design and placebo controls in psychedelic research. She is passionate about exploring the potential of this innovative field and hopes to be able to incorporate it into her future practice.
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Advisor
Dr. Mark Cornfield is a semi-retired community psychiatrist/therapist who has worked with non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC) since the late 1980s when he became involved with holotropic breathwork (a practice which can bring about NOSC without the use of medicines). He and his partner Susan McBride have been practitioners of Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) with both individuals and couples since 2018. Mark and Susan are currently known for their ongoing presentation of KLEs (Ketamine Learning Experiences) — residential workshops for groups of mental healthcare professionals.
In late 2021, Mark and Adam Blackman were co-founders of the OMA Medical Interest Group (MIG) in Psychedelic Medicine. Although Mark has never been an official member of the MIG executive, he attends all MIG executive meetings acting as a member at large/advisor from the MIG’s earliest days until the present.
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