Psychedelic Education: Training Programs & Continuing Education

Psychedelic education is critical to building an ecosystem of healing and to disseminating best practices among health professionals. Join Allison Feduccia, PhD, in exploring the current training and psychedelic education landscape and what the future will hold.

Psychedelic education is one of the most essential components of creating an effective and accessible system of treatment and healing. In light of the anticipated approval of psychedelic medicines, we must develop an educational ecosystem to share, collect, and transmit knowledge and support best practices that meet the projected need for competent health professionals.

Trained doctors, healthcare workers, therapists, and healers of all kinds are needed to deliver psychedelic medicines as they become approved or to make referrals for their patients who wish to undergo legal psychedelic therapies. They will also need to prepare for working with those who use psychedelics outside the clinic. There is a public shift in perspective on the medical uses of psychedelics. At the same time, Americans are seeing increased use of psychedelics in non-medical settings. 

The Need for Provider Training and Psychedelic Education

The psychedelic renaissance in the field of medicine and mainstream culture necessitates the expansion of education and training for health professionals. Thanks to the findings from contemporary clinical trials, evidence-based narratives are replacing misconceptions and myths about psychedelics. We can group the level of education needed for health practitioners into three main categories. Each category reflects how a practitioner will interface with patients who medicate with psychedelic compounds or use them for other reasons. 

Training opportunities to become certified as a psychedelic therapist are currently limited. Pharmaceutical companies are developing protocols to administer psychedelics either as an adjunct to psychotherapy or in the context of psychedelic-assisted therapy or supportive care. In other words, these methodologies entail that either a patient undergoes ongoing therapy in order to qualify for a psychedelic session or that they receive therapy or care during the session within a greater context of ongoing therapy, as well. Researchers in clinical trials receive training from pharmaceutical companies, like COMPASS Pathways, Usona Institute, or Lykos Therapeutics, so that they can learn to adhere to protocols for a specific drug and therapeutic approach. However, these companies primarily restrict enrollment in their programs to those working on clinical trials nowadays. 

Emerging Training Programs for Psychedelic Therapy

Training programs outside pharmaceutical and academic research settings are also popping up. Some of these programs are geared only toward licensed practitioners who want to become psychedelic therapists and/or psychedelic integration therapists. In contrast, others are open to those outside the field of mental health who may wish to hold space professionally for people on psychedelics and/or help them integrate afterward. Here is a list of some available training programs:

• Integrative Psychiatry Institute (IPI)
• Polaris Insight Center
• Vital Training
• Naropa University
• Sage Institute
• California Institute of Integral Studies (CTPR program)
• Fluence
• SoundMind
• Psychedelic Research and Training Institute (PRATI)
• DoubleBlind
• Zendo Sit
• Inbodied Life
• UC Berkeley
• Tam Integration

Who Certifies Psychedelic Education and Training Programs?

At the moment, uncertainty surrounds who will issue accreditation and certifications for psychedelic training programs. Each program’s adequacy to meet the requirements set forth by drug sponsors and the FDA for approved psychedelic medications is still to be determined. The FDA has never regulated the practice of therapy or a drug-therapy combination like psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Though speculative, the FDA likely won’t dictate how to administer training programs. However, it may ask drug sponsors to ensure that competent providers trained according to specific protocols deliver their medication.

New professional associations and accreditation boards are on a mission to establish new standards of care and accreditation. It remains unclear how long-standing associations like the American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association will fit into the accreditation process since they currently play a significant role in doing so for other postgraduate training programs. The costs of these new psychedelic-specific standards for patients and practitioners are also an open question, varying per program.

Currently, health professionals are investing heavily in steep training program costs, anywhere from $1,000 to $15,000, without assurance that these certificates will be applicable for FDA-approved psychedelic medicines or meet the standards under development. While it remains unclear when (or if) the FDA will approve psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (beyond ketamine, which is already legal off-label in clinical and at-home models around the world), some trainees may put their education to underground use for other substances. 

In the case of ketamine, it’s simply up to the providers to determine what ketamine training, if any, is necessary to administer the substance. With a drug as powerful as ketamine, the lack of requirements for training calls into question the standards and safety of the industry as a whole, leading to varied and unpredictable quality of care. 

Primary Challenges to Establishing a Psychedelic Healthcare Workforce

In addition to these hurdles, the healthcare industry faces three main challenges to establishing sufficiently trained and educated providers: the number of providers, certificate training programs, and continuing education.

1. Number of Providers

Because psychedelic therapy is a novel modality that warrants a unique approach, the required number of trained providers to offer sufficient care will fail to meet demand at first. Almost everyone who finds themselves in this space will be new to it, with no prior above-ground experience (there are, however, many providers with decades of underground experience, mentorship, and education through non-medical sources). Thus, as the industry trains up new providers, demand will outstrip supply for some time. Eventually, the proper number of trained providers will meet the demand. This could cause difficulties in acquiring psychedelic therapy in rural or marginalized communities, who have less access to healthcare infrastructure.

2. Certificate Training Programs in Psychedelic Education

Pharmaceutical sponsors, professional associations, and certification boards will outline qualifications and core competencies to qualify providers as proficient in delivering safe and effective psychedelic therapies. Most current psychedelic education programs require the candidate to be a licensed health professional or ordained clergy. They also assume the trainee has already undergone extensive training in mental health and patient care. The structure of programs typically consists of multiple parts, which may include online eLearning modules, faculty lectures, role play, scenario enactments, breakout groups, experiential learning, instructor-led discussions, and supervision. 

Psychedelic therapies come with special considerations related to the spiritual, transpersonal, and mystical nature of these experiences. Psychedelic experiences stretch beyond the reductionist frameworks typically taught in medical fields, which base all lessons on factual, empirical evidence and omit discussion about topics that the scientific method cannot pin down. 

For example, current medical establishment frameworks cannot adequately explain mysticism, mysterium tremendum (awe-inspiring mystery), and psychedelic-induced sublimity. That said, there may be very real medicinal benefits, as well as risks, to the mystical experience that psychedelic practitioners should be aware of.

Experiential Learning

Reading theoretical underpinnings and absorbing third-person perspectives can only go so far. Only through an experiential exercise can one become intimately familiar with the bizarreness and ineffable quality of a psychedelic journey. Psychedelic training programs sometimes include an experiential learning component. The trainee enters a non-ordinary state of consciousness to gain insight and first-hand knowledge. 

For instance, Lykos has offered trainees an opportunity to undergo MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in a clinical research study. If someone wishes to not participate for whatever reason, they can fulfill their experiential training through other activities. Examples of these are Holotropic Breathwork, a legal ayahuasca retreat in a foreign country, or any other pre-approved activity that provides access to and exploration of an altered state. 

Whether or not experiential learning is necessary for training is a topic of debate. Psychiatrists don’t try all the drugs they prescribe to patients. On the other hand, you wouldn’t trust a sherpa to take you to the summit of Mount Everest who had never made the trek themselves.

Core Competencies in Psychedelic Therapy

In order to be a safe psychedelic facilitator capable of holding space for a positive experience and outcome, candidates will need to possess a set of core competencies. In a 2017 publication, Janis Phelps, the CIIS psychedelic therapy training program director, described six therapist competencies:

• Empathetic abiding presence
• Trust enhancement
• Spiritual intelligence
• Knowledge of the physical and psychological effects of psychedelics
• Therapist self-awareness and ethical integrity
• Proficiency in complementary techniques

More specifically, in order to foster a safe and positive environment for a psychedelic experience, practitioners should likely be well-versed and skilled in these core competencies:

• Ethics of care
• Diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism practices
• Drug pharmacology
• Creating optimal settings
• Subjective effects
• Common adverse reactions
• Contraindicated medical conditions and medications
• Creating safety through preparation, informed consent, and warm settings
• Therapeutic approaches
• Supporting difficult experiences
• Working on a co-therapy team
• Clinical trial safety and efficacy findings
• Psychological mechanisms

Ethical Considerations and Cultural Sensitivity

To avoid harm and misconduct, psychedelic-assisted therapy providers must abide by strong ethical commitments and be held accountable. They must be informed about the unique issues that can arise during non-ordinary states of consciousness and receive extensive training and supervision to assure patient safety. 

As psychedelics emerge in clinical practices, it’s also important to acknowledge and respect Indigenous communities’ long-held reverence and stewardship for psychedelic plant medicines in ceremonial and healing practices. Many Western medical professionals do not currently have the worldview to understand how the adaptation of these long-held traditions can damage Indigenous people or how to avoid cultural misappropriation and other harm. A delicate and nuanced balance is required to honor traditions while simultaneously advancing the use of psychedelics to treat mental health conditions in the context of Western medicine. 

The majority of completed psychedelic clinical trials lack participant diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. Providers would benefit from well-rounded lessons in diversity and cultural sensitivity as part of training. 

• Ethics of care
• Diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism practices
• Drug pharmacology
• Creating optimal settings
• Subjective effects
• Common adverse reactions
• Contraindicated medical conditions and medications
• Creating safety through preparation, informed consent, and warm settings
• Therapeutic approaches
• Supporting difficult experiences
• Working on a co-therapy team
• Clinical trial safety and efficacy findings
• Psychological mechanisms

3. Continuing Psychedelic Education

Like most medical specialties, the majority of health providers will not administer psychedelic therapies. However, they will need to be familiar with these approaches. They should acquire adequate information to discern between good versus poor candidates for psychedelic treatments. Psychedelics are not for everyone. Continuing education (CE) and continuing medical education (CME) are the best avenues for professionals to learn the essential information to support patients through psychedelic therapy, to vet who is a candidate, and to provide the integration that follows. 

To keep serving the public, continuing medical education requires that the learning content be free from commercial influence and pharmaceutical company bias. Third-party education providers like Psychedelic Support adhere to these guidelines to safeguard learners and ensure they receive high-quality, evidence-based information about psychedelic education without interference from commercial interests.

Psychedelic professionals will need to continue their education after completing full training programs to keep up with the rapidly evolving field. Hundreds of novel studies are already underway and being planned, which could lead to the approval of many new psychedelic medicines. Research findings, together with information from clinical practices, will accumulate and be available for practitioners through courses, conferences, workshops, and clinical guidelines. 

Professional networking will offer another viable avenue for information-sharing, peer support, and professional development. As a more informal information exchange, professional networking events will provide a valuable opportunity to broaden one’s knowledge through conversations with other therapists, practitioners, and researchers. 

Peer Support and Public Harm Reduction

In addition to licensed providers, other people and systems play a crucial role in weaving together support networks for people to stay safe and benefit from engaging with psychedelics. As individuals complete psychedelic-assisted protocols, long-term care and support can bolster the integration process. Community groups and integration coaches can be a more affordable option and accommodate a greater number of people. Psychedelic Support offers a directory of community groups for people seeking connection and support to assist with integration and mental health. 

Not everyone enters altered states of consciousness through a facilitated session. These individuals may need support in processing challenging experiences. Or, they may wish to integrate with others in their community who have undergone similar journeys. Family and friends can be a touchstone for individuals undergoing transformational experiences. They can represent an important layer in the tiers of care, especially if these loved ones have had previous psychedelic experiences. 

Cultivate Care and Safety Together

As we can see, an entire ecosystem of health providers and community support systems is needed for the adoption and safe use of psychedelic medicines. By working together with all stakeholders, a thriving community may emerge from a once-fringe topic to bring worldwide healing and mental wellness. Education is the first critical step. Start learning today.