Shannon Hughes, PhD

Dr. Shannon Hughes teaches, consults, and conducts research on how we use drugs and medicines in our society today. She is a community organizer and leader in articulating the shifting paradigms around our relationships with Self and medicines/drugs. She has developed and delivered education and training to professional social workers, counselors, and researchers, and to young people trying to make sense of their distress and struggles. Dr. Shannon is firmly grounded in her sense of Higher Self and inner guidance, and offers spiritual coaching to others who are seeking to connect with broader perspective and life's big questions. Dr. Shannon's interest in psychedelic medicine began several years ago when her husband, newly diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer, expressed his desire to explore his end of life with psilocybin mushrooms. At the time, neither Shannon nor her husband had any way of connecting with others personally or professionally who could facilitate such an experience, and her husband died without ever having that wish fulfilled. Seeing her husband through this death transition, coupled with her years of research on the clinical testing, effects, and impacts of prescribed psychotropic drugs (i.e., antidepressants, stimulants, sedatives, antipsychotics), have led to her advocacy around access and power as it relates to use of medicines. Dr. Shannon's undergraduate and advanced degrees are in Social Work, with her doctorate awarded in 2010 from Florida International University. She has published numerous articles in the peer-reviewed literature and regularly speaks at professional conferences and community advocacy events.