Adele Lafrance

Dr. Adele Lafrance is a clinical psychologist, research scientist, and author known for developing Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT), an evidence-based model that transformed how families are engaged in mental health recovery - equipping caregivers and close others, not just clinicians, to play a central role in healing conditions such as eating disorders, anxiety, depression, and addiction. She has particular expertise in emotion science, advanced communication skills, and the practice of therapeutic apology as a tool for repairing ruptures across settings.

At the core of Lafrance's thinking is a bigger question reshaping the mental health field: what if psychological struggle isn't an individual pathology at all, but a response to the larger systems: historical, institutional, relational, that people are embedded in? Her work in liberation psychology explores this shift, moving audiences away from blame-based narratives and toward a more expansive, systems-level understanding of healing and growth.

Lafrance has also been at the frontier of one of the most talked-about developments in mental health: the resurgence of psychedelic-assisted therapy. She has worked across ayahuasca, MDMA, psilocybin, and ketamine research and treatment, including as clinical investigator and strategy lead on a MAPS-sponsored study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy and as a collaborator on Imperial College's psilocybin research. She is a founding member of The Love Project, and speaks widely on what this new frontier of medicine reveals about connection, family, and the future of healing.

Lafrance is the author of a clinical manual on Emotion-Focused Family Therapy published by the American Psychological Association and co-author of the parenting book "What to Say to Kids When Nothing Seems to Work." Her work has been featured in major media outlets including Oprah Magazine and Medical News Today. As a keynote speaker, she brings audiences fresh, research-backed perspectives on emotion, family systems, liberation psychology, and the psychedelic renaissance - ideas that are reshaping how organizations, clinicians, and leaders think about healing, connection, and human potential.