HOLOS
Rita Kočárová, MSc. (PhD stud.)
Rita Kočárová is a researcher and postgraduate student in clinical psychology at the Charles University (Prague, CZ) and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH CZ) in the research program of Applied Research, trainee of Gestalt therapy and MDMA-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); and founder of Beyond Psychedelics international initiative and Czech Psychedelic Society.
Her research focuses on the psychoactive substances, with the special emphasize on psychedelics: psilocybin, ayahuasca, MDMA, 5-MeO-DMT containing secretion from Bufo alvarius toad, and others. She focuses on their mechanism of functioning, effect on mental health in patients as well as healthy volunteers, their potential therapeutic use, history of psychedelic research. Together with her collagues, she developed a theory of the transdiagnostic action of psychedelics. She is a chief researcher of the nationwide project mapping the phenomenon of use of psychedelics in the Czech Republic (“National Psychedelic Study”) with the aim to develop a the proposal on system of services for psychedelic users.
Some of those topics she was intensively studying also during her research internship in Takiwasi Center in Peru in 2014, where psychotherapy and psychoactive plants are used to rehabilitate drug addicts. She has also studied variety of other contexts all over the world where psychedelic substance is used. She is a member of Czech Neuropsychopharmacological Society and Complex Approach to Addiction.