Faculty & experts

The people shaping CPACT

Anam Cara Centre is held by two founders and a faculty of clinicians, researchers, contemplatives and Indigenous lineage holders. Together they bring clinical depth, cultural reverence and neurobiological insight to a training grounded in ethics, embodiment and relationship.

The founders

Co-creators of the SWIM model

Dr Alana (Lani) Roy and Melissa Warner founded and direct Anam Cara Centre, weaving clinical practice, cultural humility and contemplative science into a single training path.

Anam Cara Centre co-founders seated together on a picnic rug in a green riverside meadow — Dr Alana (Lani) Roy with long black hair on the left, turned toward Melissa Warner with pink hair on the right, a brass singing bowl and carved wooden mushrooms before them — Lani and Melissa, co-founders of Anam Cara Centre

Co-Founder & Director

Dr Alana (Lani) Roy

Program Director & Lead Facilitator · Chair of AMAPP

Lani is a psychologist, social worker and therapist, Co-Director of Anam Cara Centre, and Founder and Director of The Signs of Life Psychology. She is Chair and a Founding Board Member of the Australian Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Practitioners (AMAPP), and an Associate Research Fellow at Swinburne University.

Across fifteen years in mental health, she has worked in suicide prevention, complex trauma, sexual abuse and family violence. Her clinical and research focus is harm reduction for psychedelics, drawing on the Ayahuasca, vegetalista and Ashaninka dieta lineages, alongside ketamine and cannabis-assisted psychotherapy. Her doctoral research with Australian vegetalista dieteros grounds the Centre's Peru Dieta program.

Lani volunteers with DanceWize, offering peer-based harm reduction in community and festival settings.

Co-Founder & Director

Melissa Warner

Program Director & Lead Facilitator · Meditation Teacher

Melissa is a multidisciplinary researcher, educator, technologist and artist, working across neuroscience, contemplative science, extended reality and psychedelic therapy. She is a Research Fellow at Swinburne University and The Intangible Realities Laboratory, studying altered states and the mechanisms of change.

She is Secretary of PRISM, the research body that helped bring Australia's first psilocybin and MDMA trials to fruition, and Director of Cyberdelic Nexus and PATHS XR. As a Psychedelic Medicine Integration Coach and mindfulness meditation teacher, she teaches meditation and metacognitive practice at Signs of Life Psychology.

With Lani, Melissa co-created the SWIM model and the EMPATHS values that shape every part of the Anam Cara curriculum.

Because the human heart is never completely born, love is the continuous birth of creativity within and between us. John O'Donohue, Anam Cara

Melissa Warner, pink hair, and Dr Alana (Lani) Roy, black hair, seated at the shoreline as Lani offers a crystal singing bowl between them — Sound and ceremony at the coast — the founders at work

The faculty

A gathering of teachers

Our faculty spans psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, herbalism, yoga, breathwork and Indigenous curanderismo. Among them are notable voices in the field, including former Imperial College psilocybin lead Dr Rosalind Watts, Beckley Retreats co-founder Neil Markey, psychotherapist and philosopher Dr Tra'ill Dowie, and lead clinical advisor Dr Llew Lewis.

Notable faculty

Dr Llew Lewis

Lead Clinical Advisor · Psychiatrist

Honorary Clinical Fellow at ANU and Principal Investigator at the ANU Medical School's randomised controlled trial of psilocybin in treatment-resistant depression. With more than twenty-seven years as a psychiatrist across the UK, South Africa and Australia, Llew is psychiatric lead of the crisis team at Canberra Hospital. His team received the UK Royal College's Adult Psychiatry Team of the Year award in 2014.

Jean-Luc Alder

Provisional Psychologist

A provisional psychologist completing a Master of Psychology (Clinical) at ISN Psychology. His Monash Honours research explored meditation in virtual nature and connectedness to nature. Jean-Luc volunteers with Lifeline and Griefline, coaches with the McGuire Programme supporting people who stutter, and is a working musician.

Gianna Manzini

Registered Psychologist · Coach

A registered psychologist and organisational development consultant with a Master's in Transpersonal Psychology from Sofia University. Gianna works across occupational health and rehabilitation, organisational wellbeing and psychedelic consultancy, bringing a psycho-spiritual approach to her practice. She is also the Centre's course administration contact.

Dr Orit Holtzman

Cannabis & Functional Medicine

An authorised cannabis prescriber and President of the ANZ College of Cannabis Practitioners, Orit holds an MBBS and a PhD in neuroscience from UNSW. Co-founder and director of Leura Wellness, she has prescribed cannabis since 2019 to more than a thousand patients, and serves as lead cannabis prescriber and integrative medicine lecturer.

Anthony Olsen

Holotropic Breathwork Facilitator

A Melbourne-based psychotherapist working in Process Oriented psychotherapy and Holotropic Breathwork. Anthony's first breathwork experience was in 1997 with the Rev. Alf Foote, and he completed Grof Transpersonal Training certification in 2013. He leads the holotropic breathwork practice within CPACT.

Lana Sciberras

Clinical Psychotherapist · Supervisor

A clinical psychotherapist and clinical supervisor with more than twenty years in private practice, grounded in Gestalt and Process-oriented Psychology, mindfulness and compassion. MAPS-trained, Lana was a therapist on the MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy trial for PTSD and part of the 3PAP trial at Swinburne and the Monash Clinical Psychedelic Lab. She provides reflective practice supervision for trauma and ICU teams at The Alfred, and lectures for the Centre.

Alex De Foe

Consciousness & Psychedelic Studies

Founding Director of the Australian Centre for Consciousness Studies, lecturer at Monash and Associate Editor of the Journal of Psychedelic Studies. Alex holds a Master's of Counselling and a PhD in experimental psychology from Monash, with research spanning out-of-body experience, dualism and spiritual neurodiversity, and more than thirty published papers. He lectures on consciousness and psychedelics.

Dr Anthony Helman

GP · Psychedelic Psychotherapist

A psychedelic medicine specialist, GP and GP supervisor trained at the University of Adelaide, with Masters in clinical nutrition and psychiatry, and further study in naturopathy and acupuncture. A senior GP educator with the RACGP and a certified addictions and methadone prescriber, Anthony has served as a psychedelic psychotherapist on trials at Monash, Swinburne and ANU.

Ella Shannon

Counsellor · Clinical Sexologist

A counsellor and psychotherapist, clinical sexologist and EMDR therapist and supervisor with ten years of practice in relationship counselling, sex therapy, EMDR and Internal Family Systems. Ella works in person in Cairns and via Zoom, and lectures on psychedelics, sexuality and IFS.

Notable faculty

Dr Rosalind Watts

Integration Specialist · Co-Founder of ACER

A clinical psychologist and co-founder of ACER Integration, Rosalind was formerly Clinical Lead for Imperial College London's psilocybin trial and has been named among the fifty most influential people in psychedelics. She co-founded the UK's first psychedelic integration group, and in 2022 launched ACER, "Accept, Connect, Embody, Restore", a thirteen-month integration process she brings to CPACT as an independent elective.

Michele Maselli

Yoga & Breathwork · "Mickey Space"

A Gita Yoga and Yin Yoga teacher and founder of Sparkly Yoga. Michele completed an initial 900-hour teacher training in 2006, spent eight years teaching in Thailand, and studied in India in the Iyengar and Sivananda traditions. As a senior lecturer, he leads the CPACT yoga electives.

Lily of the Herbs

Herbalist · Bodyworker · Educator

A herbalist, bodyworker and educator working in Zenthai Shiatsu and womb hara sessions, with a Bachelor of Health Science in Western Herbal Medicine. Lily co-facilitates the elective "Cultivating Ecosystems of Support: Herbalism for Psychedelic Preparation, Integration, and Self-Care."

Maria Alejandra Gonzalez Bueno

Spanish Interpreter · Biomedical Scientist

A native Spanish speaker, biomedical scientist and researcher who has worked at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience with the University of Melbourne, and holds a Deakin International Scholarship. Maria is the interpreter for the Peru Cultural Immersion Dieta Retreat.

Curanderos of the Ashaninka Lineage

Indigenous Lineage Holders · Peru

First Nations curanderos of the Ashaninka lineage at the Piompiri Healing Centre in Pucallpa, Peru, with more than twenty years in curanderismo and the traditional healing arts of the Amazon. They guide the Peru Cultural Immersion Dieta Retreat, holding the ceremonies and icaros at the heart of the program.

Notable faculty

Neil Markey

Retreat Facilitator · CEO, Beckley Retreats

Co-founder and CEO of Beckley Retreats and a former US Army Special Operations Captain who served with a Ranger Battalion. Neil holds a joint MBA and MIA from Columbia and was previously with McKinsey. He runs the Beckley Retreats medicine-assisted CPACT elective.

Notable faculty

Dr Tra'ill Dowie

Psychotherapist · Philosopher

An associate professor of psychotherapy with dual PhDs in philosophy and psychiatry, and a research fellow at La Trobe. Tra'ill advises AMAPP, is MAPS-trained, and formerly co-developed a certificate of psychedelic-assisted therapy at Mind Medicine. With twenty-five years of clinical experience in complex trauma, he lectures for the Centre.

Abikgail

Transpersonal Art Therapy Facilitator

A nature-based transpersonal art therapy practitioner and "Tainui Seer", and a student of clinical Transpersonal Art Therapy. With more than twenty years navigating altered states and working with Te Taiao, the natural living world, Abikgail has been a first responder to natural disaster, running nature-based art therapy group workshops.

Learn alongside this faculty

The next CPACT cohort journeys October 2026 to March 2027. Explore the program, or begin a conversation with our intake team.

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