What if healing isn’t just something that happens inside us—but also something that lives in our relationships with the land, the sky, and the more-than-human world around us?
In this episode of The Integration Session, Elena is joined by Keith Williams, Andrée-Anne Bédard, and Laura Pustarfi to explore the concept of inner healing intelligence—a central yet undertheorized idea in psychedelic therapy. Drawing from their recent publication in the Journal of Psychedelic Studies, they unpack the origins of inner healing intelligence, its connections to Indigenous philosophies and vitalism, and how it expands psychedelic healing beyond the individual toward ecological and relational dimensions. They also offer ideas about practical ways to study inner healing intelligence and ways that you can connect with your own inner healer.
Keith Williams is an Assistant Professor (Educational Studies) at Athabasca University. Keith gardens and swims in the powerful Bay of Fundy tidal environment. His work focuses on better understanding how to be good relations with our more-than-human kin. Keith draws heavily on posthuman and Indigenous thought and he relies heavily on his lived experience with family members—human and otherwise.
Andrée-Anne Bédard is the program manager for the Bachelor of Indigenous Midwifery at First Nations Technical Institute (FNTI) in Tyendinaga, Mohawk territory. She is a clinical herbalist, educator and researcher with keen interest in the transformative potential of relational education. She is a mother of three and is known in her community to be of a caring and inquisitive nature.
Laura Pustarfi, Ph.D., is Director of the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research Certificate Program and adjunct faculty in Philosophy and Religion at CIIS. Her scholarly interests include plant studies, integral ecology, psychedelic philosophy, and environmental humanities, especially environmental philosophy, eco-phenomenology, and religion and ecology. She is co-editor with David Macauley of The Wisdom of Trees: Thinking Through Arboreality.
Additional Content Discussed in the Episode:
1. Laura’s co-edited book, including a brilliant chapter on arboreal ethics: Macauley, D., & Pustarfi, L. (Eds.). (2025). The Wisdom of Trees: Thinking Through Arboreality. State University of New York Press.
2. Colleague Pedro Favaron (professor at PUCP ‘la catolica’ in Lima, poet and filmmaker) recent films about ayawaska: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8sU0isQIlY (with English subtitles) and citations for some of his papers that relate directly to ancestral healing among the Shipibo:
Favaron, P., & Bensho, C. (2022). Rao bewa: los cantos medicinales del pueblo shipibo-konibo. Literatura: teoría, historia, crítica, 24(2), 139-165.
Favaron Peyón, P. M. (2024). La fuerza de la palabra: reflexiones lingüísticas a partir de la etnografía shipibo-konibo. Revista Colombiana de Antropología, 60(1), 127-149.
