Ethan Nebelkopf, PhD, has served in non-profits for 40 years and has been a licensed marriage and family therapist in California for 30 years. He worked as Director of Research and Training for Walden House (now Health Right 360) from 1979-1993. Ethan served as Director of Behavioral Health for the Family & Child Guidance Clinic of the Native American Health Center in Oakland and San Francisco from 1997-2012, when he retired, He moved to the Big Island of Hawaii in 2016 and lives near Pahoa with his family.
While in the graduate program in clinical psychology at the University of Michigan, 1n 1970, Ethan wrote The Incredible Cripple Creek LSD Experiment, a personal account of a group of graduate students and faculty who explored expanded consciousness utilizing astrology, Tarot cards, I Ching readings, and rock ‘n roll.
In 1974 Ethan wrote White Bird Flies to Phoenix: Confessions of Free Clinic Burn-Out about his work at White Bird Free Clinic in Eugene, Oregon, a pioneer holistic alternative founded in 1969 based on the model of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic.
In 1981 Ethan wrote The Herbal Connection: Herbs, Drug Abuse and Holistic Health, published by BiWorld Press, the first book on alternative methods of healing from drug abuse, acknowledging the healing properties of cannabis.
Ethan is also author of Healing and Mental Health for Native Americans: Speaking in Red, published by AltaMira Press in 2004 and editor of Growing Roots: Native American Evidence-Based Practices, a special theme issue of the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs in 2011.
In 2005, Ethan received the Mental Health Achievement Award from the Mental Health Association of Alameda County. In 2006, he received a Certificate of Appreciation from the Office of Multicultural Services of the California Department of Mental Health. Ethan was Keynote Speaker for the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Institute at the United States Conference on AIDS in 2006. In 2007 he received the SAMHSA Award of Excellence for development of integrated, substance abuse prevention and treatment programs, mental health services, and HIV/AIDS prevention programs for Native Americans.