Cape Talk’s John Maytham spoke with Leonie Joubert to get an update on developments in the field of psychedelic-assisted therapy internationally, and what this means for bringing this novel mental health treatment to South Africa. Listen to the interview from 17 March 2021 here.
TEDxCapeTownWomen: Talking with Trees - Indigenous Knowledge in the Climate Crisis
South African science writer Leonie Joubert recently took to the TEDxCapeTownWomen stage to talk about the climate crisis, the need for a collective ‘nature awakening’, and the potential of psychedelics to bring about the social healing and political disruption we need in the face of a planetary emergency.
@TEDxCTWomen #BoldAndBrilliant
‘Are Magic Mushrooms Magic Medicine?’
Cape Talk’s Sara-Jayne Makwala King in discussion with science writer Leonie Joubert about psilocybin for treating depression, and important international and global developments in law and medical research.
This local radio show has given unprecedented coverage of this important mental health story over the past 18 months. Listen to the discussion here.
On the decriminalisation of psilocybin mushrooms in Denver, and what's happening to mainstream this medicine in South Africa
Cape Talk’s Linzi Bourhill once again opens up her show to discuss the potential of psilocybin-assisted therapy in South Africa. An interview with South African science writer and The Psychonauts podcaster Leonie Joubert on 14 May 2019. Listen here.
A quick introduction to psilocybin for treating depression, for the State of Dis-Ease conference.
Psilocybin for treating depression: a quick overview at the State of Dis-Ease conference in March 2019.
‘Depression can be a fatal disease.
American novelist David Foster Wallace was one of its victims. He died of depression in September 2008.
A few years before that, he wrote something that might help us understand why someone would choose to take their life. He said that a depressed person doesn’t choose this end because they find death suddenly appealing. Someone ends their life, he wrote, in ‘the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise’. The terror of falling from a great height is easier to face than the terror of the fire’s flames…’
Read the full talk here.
Featured on Cape Talk's Science & Tech slot on 13 Nov 2018.
Speaking on local radio station Cape Talk, 4 September 2018
Cape Talk's Linzi Bourhill invited Leonie into the Cape Town studio to talk about the podcast, the underground psychedelic medicine community in South Africa, and the research coming from abroad which shows what an affordable and effective form of therapy this can be.
The Psychonauts, on the PechaKucha stage in Cape Town.
South Africa's Constitution upholds our right to healthcare. Given how unaffordable and inaccessible mental health treatment is in South Africa, having access to a treatment like psilocybin-assisted therapy becomes a Constitutional one. Early findings from clinical trials show that psilocybin may be more effective for treating some mood disorders and addictions, than current methods. But psilocybin is currently illegal in South Africa, making it impossible for therapists to include it in their treatment methods. A 2018 court bid to legalise the substance may change that.
Science writer Leonie Joubert presents The Psychonauts on the PechaKucha stage in Cape Town on 7 November 2017.
On how to bring affordable public mental health to SA
Leonie Joubert in conversation with podcaster Adrian Baker from Hacking Consciousness, on how to bring an affordable, accessible form of mental health care to traumatised Africans.
A model for psilocybin-assisted therapy in a developing world context.
Interview on 702 and Cape Talk
Mike Wills, standing in for John Maytham, interviewed science writer Leonie Joubert about The Psychonauts, in August 2017.