Collaborative Team
Christine Pateros, MA, RN, Co-founder
Chris Pateros is the co-founder of Ela Healing and has been in the healing arts as a clinician since the 1980s. After “dying” in the Amazon jungle in 2011 in her own life-affirming psychedelic journey, Chris’ course as a healer was transformed from clinical nurse and clinical drug researcher to shamanic energy healing practitioner and psychedelic nurse therapist. She has served clients globally in her private healing practice since 2007. She has practiced ketamine-assisted treatment since early 2019 having been mentored by Phil Wolfson, MD and Julane Andries, LMFT through the Ketamine Training Center. Chris is co-founder of Psychedelic Research and Training Institute (PRATI) and serves as Program Director for the End of Life/ Existential Distress Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Program and as lead trainer (ritual & ceremony) for Foundational Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Trainings as well as medical team RN for Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy clinician trainings. Chris is also faculty for Polaris Insight Center Ketamine and Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Trainings as well as for other private clinical entities. Chris teaches globally. She is an author and contributor to Quest Journal. She is an initiate of the Qero indigenous medicine people of the Peruvian Andes. She is an Ecopsychologist academically trained at Naropa University.
Returning to heart and to roots in nature, Chris as a life-long learner has been a student of many healers, sages, visionaries and spiritual leaders including Tenzin Gyatso — HH the 14th Dalai Lama, shamanic healer, medical anthropologist and psychologist Alberto Villoldo, PhD, Qui Gong Master Yang Yang, PhD, shamanic practitioner and Earthkeeper Sandra Ingerman, LMFT, poet, psychoanalyst, post-trauma specialist and activist Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD, master visionary artists and authors and activists Alex and Allyson Grey, Andean mystical teacher, practitioner and author Joan Parisi Wilcox and many Andean Qero mystics as well as plant-centric Amazonian Shipibo medicine people.
Chris bridges healing between the western and indigenous worlds as a global spiritual guide, ceremonialist, ketamine-assisted nurse therapist, an artist, author, healer, teacher and presenter, Chris grounds herself in ecocentric ritual, ceremony and practices. Chris’ calling, seeking and mystical soul-seeing has awakened her spirit to support others to own and share their potent gifts in the world by guiding groups and circles in embodied conscious living and dying practices as well as sacred art creation. Internationally, she guides shamanic energy and earth practices through workshops, presentations and private client work.
Chris maintains her private practice in ketamine-assisted therapy and shamanic living and healing, serving clients exploring soul healing, awakened living and dying, existential death work and expansion of consciousness. Chris believes that death in all forms is truly the greatest teacher. Her life’s flourishing practices include painting portals, feeling the essence of animals, places, people and the land channeling through her to the canvas and paper while colors transmute into form. Chris has two daughters-one in spirit and one who lives in Brooklyn, NY. Chris lives in Denver, Colorado and spends regular time in her birthplace of Chicago and her lineage home of Kythira, Greece.
Darren Fisher, RN, Co-founder
Darren is the co-founder of Ela Healing has a Bachelors degree in Psychology with a concentration in Buddhist psychology and a second Bachelors degree in Nursing. He has spent years studying and practicing meditation in Asia and has facilitated meditation groups in the U.S. A nurse for the past 15 years, with the last 9 years in hospice nursing, he attended the Psychedelic Research And Training Institute’s (PRATI) Ketamine and Psychedelic Medicine program after learning about the positive role psychedelics have played in end of life care. Interested in the many benefits of group work, he has created and co-facilitated group KAT retreats focused on healing and spiritual deepening. He enjoys teaching with an experiential focus. Darren is a musician and enjoys curating and creating sound experiences to support clients in their psychedelic experience.
Darren blends the approaches of psychedelic medicine and meditation practices to support clients accessing and building connection to their own inner wisdom, resilience, and healing through entering into deeper relationship with parts of themselves that they may have lost touch with.
German Ascani, MD MS
German F. Ascani, MD, MS
German is a board-certified psychiatrist and psychotherapist who is passionate about the potential that psychedelic and natural medicines have in nurturing and supporting our inherent drive towards psychological, emotional and spiritual growth. He has worked over 15 years with underserved, poor, homeless and marginalized communities providing direct patient care and clinical leadership in various roles. As someone who is bicultural and bilingual, he bridges Spanish and English with ease, weaving together the richness of both cultures in the way he connects with others. He is currently in private practice in Denver. He has extensive clinical and research experience using ketamine treatment modalities in psychiatry and uses a harm reduction and integration approach when consulting with patients that are exploring psychedelic medicines. He has trained hundreds of licensed health professionals through faculty and lead trainer roles at the Psychedelic Research and Training Institute (PRATI) and at the Naropa Center for Psychedelic Studies (NCPS). He is MAPS/Lykos trained as an associate consultant for MDMA-AT, and was involved in phase 3 clinical trials for MDMA-AT for PTSD in Fort Collins, CO.
Agi Corona Semrad, LPC
Agi is a warm and compassionate bilingual therapist fluent in Spanish and English, dedicated to creating a safe and caring space for deep healing and personal growth. She holds a Master’s degree in Education with a focus on Community Counseling and brings a rich background in education, working with children, adolescents, adults, families, and groups.
With specialized training in Ketamine-Assisted Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP), and Psychedelic Somatic Interactional Psychotherapy, Agi integrates evidence-based and holistic approaches to support clients on their healing journey. She has co-facilitated KAT groups and retreats, blending therapeutic practices with psychedelic medicine to help individuals access deeper connection to themselves and their highest potential. Agi is passionate about supporting neurodiverse individuals as well as those who identify as BIPOC, honoring each person’s unique story and identity.
As the founder of The Balance Project, a nonprofit focused on improving access to mental health services, Agi is committed to eliminating barriers to care and building emotional wellness within the community. Age is clinical researcher with a focus on KAT to reduce existential anxiety in people with HIV. She lives and works in the Chicago area.
Michelle Flowers, MD
Michelle Flowers is a psychiatrist, mother, and nature enthusiast with over 20 years of clinical experience. As an end-of-life psychedelic-assisted therapy facilitator, she brings together her medical expertise, deep compassion, and love of the natural world to support individuals and families during life’s most tender transitions. Grounded in evidence-based practice and guided by a respect for the sacred, Michelle offers a calm, caring presence that helps others find meaning, peace, and connection at the threshold of life. She lives and works in the Chicago area.
Shannon Darling, PMHNP
Shannon is an expert in ketamine-assisted therapy to support thriving living, even in the sacred thresholds of life limiting or life threatening illness. She specializes in the psychiatric care of women, children, and adolescents. Shannon entered into the mental health field and specifically integrative psychiatry upon recognizing the gap in mental health care in overall wellbeing of acute care patients. Shannon’s background is in acute care nursing, with 9 years in women and infant services. She is a Colorado native and loves being outdoors with her kids, olympic weightlifting, mountain biking, and all the things to do with Colorado outdoor life. Shannon is particularly passionate about women’s health. She believes in building therapeutic relationships and providing holistic tools to foster healing to meet individual’s needs.
