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Behind the Stigma
Hosted and produced by Seiara Imanova, a PhD student from University of Birmingham, Behind the Stigma is a pioneering podcast that bridges the gap between the general public and the fields of Psychology, Psychiatry and Mental Health.
Each episode offers a deep dive into cutting-edge research, featuring conversations with leading experts and top researchers in the field. Take a listen, as we uncover the science, challenge misconceptions, and bridge the crucial gap between academia and the everyday.
Behind the Stigma
The plants are always speaking with Dr. Rebekah Senānāyaka
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In this week's episode, I'm joined by Rebekah Senānāyaka, ethnobotanist and PhD graduate in Cultural Anthropology, whose research takes us deep into the Amazonian rainforest. Rebekah spent 27 months immersed in indigenous plant medicine traditions, including her own experiences with ayahuasca and sanango and her work introduces the concept of extended multispecies liminality, exploring what happens when the boundary between human and plant consciousness begins to dissolve.
We discuss what it really means to do embodied fieldwork, why the psychedelic renaissance may be missing the point, and what plant medicine traditions can teach us about healing.
About: Rebekah Senānāyaka is a cultural psychologist and Ph.D. candidate in Cultural Anthropology, specializing in traditional Amazonian knowledge systems. With extensive fieldwork in the Amazon Rainforest, she examines how Indigenous practices inform modern understandings of altered states of consciousness. Rebekah is the founder of the Student Association of Psychedelic Investigation and a key advocate for integrating traditional and scientific perspectives in psychedelic research.
Papers
It Was the Plants that Told Us: An Ethnographic Analysis into Amazonian Knowledge Transmission
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