Scott Shannon, MD, has been a student of consciousness since he wrote his honor’s thesis on that topic at the University of Arizona in the 1970s. Following medical school, MDMA-assisted psychotherapy became a facet of his practice before this medicine was restricted by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1985. He then completed a psychiatry residency at Columbia University in New York City. Scott studied cross-cultural psychiatry and completed a child/adolescent psychiatry fellowship at the University of New Mexico. He's published four books on holistic and integrative mental health, including the very first textbook written for this field in 2001. 

Scott is a past president of the American Holistic Medical Association and a past president of the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine. He serves as a site principal investigator and therapist for the Phase III trial of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, and for a Phase IIb study of LSD in generalized anxiety disorder. He has also published numerous articles about his research on cannabidiol (CBD) in mental health. Scott founded the Psychedelic Research and Training Institute (PRATI) to train professionals in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, and deliver clinically relevant studies.  He lectures all over the world to professional groups interested in a paradigm-shifting perspective about transformative care.