Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) Training for Spiritual Health Professionals

Spiritual Health Professionals (SHPs) can play a crucial role in enhancing the overall effectiveness of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (PAT) treatments. The limited presence of SHPs—pan-denominational ministers, clergy, chaplains, pastors, and others working at the intersection of spirituality, religion, and mental health—is arguably one of the most significant oversights in the ongoing “psychedelic renaissance.”

“…Spiritual, existential, and religious concerns…can arise during treatment…demanding careful attention and sensitive inquiry….Now is the time to expand our approach and fully integrate SHPs into this vital work.”

—Harvey Schwartz, PhD

Beyond (and including) symptom relief from psychological difficulties, psychedelics can restore individuals’ connections to the sacred and transform their relationship with suffering, meaning, purpose, identity, and destiny. Psychedelics—both natural and synthetic—have the potential to enhance and facilitate psycho-spiritual healing. Working alongside mental health professionals, SHPs can offer unique and essential perspectives on spiritual, religious, existential, and theological issues that often arise during psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy treatments [1].

The Need for Increased Inclusion of Spiritual Health Practitioners in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

Many SHPs have already cultivated the foundational skills in counseling, communication, and crisis intervention working in hospitals, trauma zones, hospices, the active military, and as spiritual mentors. SHPs are increasingly sought out for integration support by practitioners and congregants following psychedelic therapy and non-clinical psychedelic experiences [2]. Increasing their participation in clinical teams and settings and research and training programs where psychedelic treatments are being planned and conducted is an essential move towards professional inclusivity and maturation within the current psychedelic movement.

Vieten and Lukoff (2022) [3] emphasize the crucial role of religion and spirituality in psychological well-being and mental health. They identified 16 spiritual and religious competencies to address gaps in clinical training. Covering diverse specific competencies within the broad categories of attitudes, knowledge, and specific skills, these authors add depth and dimensions to training for all clinicians and SHPs alike to improve the quality of assessment, treatment, and integration services for spiritual health-related issues in their qualitative analysis study of the role of spiritual health practitioners’ contributions to PAT.  Peabody et al. (2023) [4] recommend training programs take the contributions of SHPs to PAT more seriously and include them in their programs. Additionally, they propose that SHP professionals be encouraged to receive training toward future certification on par with physicians, advanced medical practice providers, licensed mental health counselors, and social workers.

Addressing Spiritual Concerns in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

While it’s valuable to have more SHPs enter the field, it remains vital for other more secular clinicians not to neglect or misunderstand the spiritual, existential, and religious concerns that can arise during treatment. PAT clients and research participants often highlight the importance of mystical and spiritual aspects in their treatment and recovery. Some point to the primacy of these experiences in both symptom alleviation, improved well-being, and quality of life dimensions of subjective reports [5].

In the realm of psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT), a variety of spiritual insights, challenges, and breakthroughs often emerge. Each demanding careful attention and sensitive inquiry, these can include:

• Visions
• Encounters with deceased relatives
• Mystical experiences that challenge previous worldviews
• Integrative and disintegrative mystical events
• Meetings with the void
• Divinity
• Mysterious beings
• Archetypal figures
• Near-death experiences

Psychedelics sometimes help us confront long-held religious and atheist/agnostic beliefs alike. These experiences can lead to transient confusion, grief, fears of ostracism from family and community, or a challenging shift in perspectives, identity, and purpose.

Expanding Training Opportunities for Spiritual Health Professionals

Now is the time to expand our approach and fully integrate SHPs into this vital work. While therapists do receive some training in these areas, most clinical programs do not adequately prepare future clinicians to navigate such complex spiritual/existential terrain. In contrast, SHPs are often deeply immersed, comfortable, and fluent in these issues.

In the spirit of forging a deeper alliance between mental and spiritual health practitioners, Polaris Insight Center (San Francisco, CA) & Rainfall Medicine (Portland, OR) are excited to offer the first KAP experiential training for this group of professional colleagues and other practitioners interested in the intersection of spirituality and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. It will be held in January 2025 from the 24th to the 28th in Portland, Oregon. Trainers include Harvey Schwartz, PhD, Steve Rosonke, MD, Veronika Gold, LMFT, Eric Sienknecht, PsyD, and select guest lecturers, including Chris Bache, PhD.

For More Information or to Participate in the Training, Please Contact training@polarisinsight.com.

Details of the KAP Experiential Training Retreat

Build upon the online modules’ training (Module 1 from Polaris’ KAP Training for Clinicians or Psychedelic Support’s Ketamine Introductory Training as a prerequisite for this retreat) and develop and strengthen clinical skills through intensive experiential learning.

Key Elements of the Training

• Direct Experiences:
  You will receive two direct experiences with ketamine as a client—one with sublingual at a moderate dose and one with intramuscular injections at a psychedelic dosing level. Additionally, you will have two experiences with both lower and higher-dose sessions as a counselor/therapist/sitter.
• Skill Development:
  Trainees will enhance their familiarity with various aspects of the therapy process, including:
  • Intake procedures
  • Preparation
  • Set and setting
  • Safety monitoring
  • Non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC)
  • The significance of experiential learning and healing (vs. conceptual)
  • Trust in the inner organic healing intelligence
• Learning Outcomes:
  Through direct experience, you will learn about the medical, biological, psychological, transpersonal, spiritual, and phenomenological aspects of the ketamine experience and how one can use it in both psychological and spiritual healing and transformation.

Focus Areas of Exploration

• The use of ketamine for consciousness exploration, spiritual development, and both individual and collective spiritual evolution, as well as for mental health indications and overall well-being.
• How KAP can assist with professional burnout and secondary post-traumatic stress within the helping professions, including ministry/chaplaincy.
• Learning to integrate biographical and transpersonal experiences effectively in small and large group settings.
• Cultivating the intersection of faith, mental health, well-being, and flourishing

Integration Techniques

The training will also offer several forms of nonverbal integration processes, utilizing various methods such as:

• Music and sound
• Art therapy
• Movement and dance
• Writing
• Meditation
• Other integrative practices

Community and Cohesion

The retreat is designed to support the growth of a supportive community, fostering group cohesion within a small cohort. It promotes an understanding of a holistic psychedelic approach to healing and well-being, integrating mind, body, and spirit.

Possible Post-Retreat Pathways 

How will training help your career and contributions to the field? 

Interdisciplinary Participation: Psychedelic therapy often elicits spiritually transformative experiences and/or specific struggles with spiritually-related struggles and concerns for the client. Increasingly, mental health and medical clinics recognize the importance of well-trained spiritual care professionals as an essential part of the interdisciplinary healthcare team. This experiential training will offer the skills needed for spiritual healthcare providers to become confident members of any ketamine (and other psychedelic therapy) team. 

Hospice Care: With growing recognition of ketamine’s potential for psychological support and healing, hospices are increasingly using ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for existential distress and end-of-life care. This training will provide a deep understanding of and exploration into all aspects of ketamine, along with the tools necessary for the sacred witnessing, processing, and integration of KAP journeys – skills transferable to clinical work with life-threatening illness and end-of-life psychological and spiritual situations 

Psychedelic Integration: Many spiritual professionals are increasingly called into psychedelic integration work with members of their community who are working with psychedelics in a variety of contexts. This training will expose you to a variety of integration modalities and processes. In addition, through witnessing numerous journeys and integration reports from fellow participants in the retreat, you will develop a wider angle lens on the opportunities and challenges of psychedelic integration. 

This training will allow clergy to serve as integration partners for those congregants/clients who have had psychedelic experiences in a secular setting (recreational, Burning Man, underground settings, etc.). 

Given that the psyche and soul communicate using metaphor, any spiritual care provider can benefit from this important training as they learn to witness clients deconstructing their psychedelic journeys. As clients use their own inner healing intelligence to make sense of the metaphors they experienced, spiritual care professionals can better assist with, support and help deepen the integration process. 

Group Integration: Host and facilitate group integration for congregation and community members 

Ketamine (and other future psychedelics) Clinics and Research Projects: Psychedelic spiritual health care professionals can work in end-of-life/hospice, home health, and hospitals–all the places that spiritual care professionals currently work, AND after this training, they could also work in ketamine, future psychedelic-, and behavioral health clinics and research projects involving KAP and other psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies. 

Independent Practice and Spiritual Mentoring: Many spiritual professionals from chaplains and rabbis to spiritual mentors & counselors, both with and without additional mental health certification, in an alliance with medical providers, will be able to function relatively autonomously (interdependently with other health care provider allies and support) to bring KAP into their individual and group spiritual counseling and mentoring work.

Working with Spiritual and Religious Trauma: Spiritual Trauma and Religious Abuse are two of the most highly under-diagnosed, misunderstood, and under-appreciated forms of trauma that can be effectively treated with ketamine- and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Because spiritual professionals have a unique understanding of this phenomenon and may be more likely to be on the front lines of being contacted by(directly or called in for consultation for) members of this traumatized population for assistance and support, training with KAP will extend participants’ capacities for understanding and effective intervention. 

Retreats: Spiritual health care professionals (in conjunction with medical providers) may be able to use this training to develop skills to eventually offer spiritual retreat opportunities for individuals or groups. (Chrysalis or Walk to Emmaus have been suggested as models but then with the addition of psychedelic substances). 

In addition, it has been suggested that experiential opportunities within a particular sacred/ceremonial/ liturgical container might be amplified and supported by KAP in conjunction with medical providers and oversight. 

Deepen your counseling and spiritual direction work: Along with training in KAP, this immersive retreat is an opportunity to deepen one’s own psycho-spiritual healing and development and to participate in supporting and facilitating the growth and healing of others. Almost all clinicians who have attended our retreats report an immediate beneficial effect on their clinical work and in their own psychotherapy processes. Participation in the retreat is likely to expand spiritual healthcare professionals’ skills and capacities for working with complex spiritual and psychological challenges presented by clients and congregants. 

Use mindfulness meditation and contemplative prayer and practices more effectively: KAP seems to have a beneficial effect on individuals’ meditation and other contemplative practices. The enhanced capacities for internal focus, mindfulness, witnessing and observing ego functions tends to improve mind-body self-care and well-being practices across the board. 

Leadership: This training can support participants to start (or join with others to help start) psychedelic societies in your communities, working on the levels of policy change, accessibility, professional community development, education, and support for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies and other health and well-being supported uses of psychedelics. 

Personal Benefit: Offering a “time-out” from normal responsibilities, this training can also support participants an extended period of reflection and professional interaction to Integrate the personal, spiritual and vocational aspects of ministry or spiritual health care practice. This may lead to shifts in personal, professional and spiritual perspectives as well as changes in professional and career direction and destiny. 

Community Building and Networking: One of the goals of all of our training and retreats is to help build a strong community and cultivate a network of psychedelically trained and informed practitioners. We hope to support the emerging psychedelic spiritual health care practitioner movement and network and to help that new network cross-pollinate and cross-fertilize with the existing psychedelic mental health care practitioners’ networks and organizations.

We are very excited about this unique undertaking in training, and we hope this begins to set a standard of inclusion and professional cross-pollination in the psychedelic therapy space looming ahead to the day in which we mental health care professionals work side-by-side with our spiritual health care professional allies in a wide variety of settings:  from research and palliative care/hospice work to outpatient clinics, KAP training retreats and special healing retreats for burnout and secondary post-traumatic stress for medical, mental health, first responders, military,  and spiritual health care professionals’ unique work stress and traumatization experiences. 

There is a great need at this time in our society for collaboration, interdisciplinary dialogue, and teamwork, and we see this unique training opportunity as an essential first step in helping our field mature and evolve its standard of care. 

References

1. Palitsky, R., Kaplan, D. M., Peacock, C., Zarrabi, A. J., Maples-Keller, J. L., Grant, G. H., Dunlop, B. W., & Raison, C. L. (2023). Importance of Integrating Spiritual, Existential, Religious, and Theological Components in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies. JAMA Psychiatry, 80(7), 743. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.1554
2. Peacock, C., Mascaro, J. S., Brauer, E., Zarrabi, A. J., Dunlop, B. W., Maples-Keller, J. L., Grant, G. H., Raison, C. L., Rab, F., & Palitsky, R. (2024). Spiritual Health Practitioners’ Contributions to Psychedelic Assisted Therapy: A Qualitative Analysis. PLoS ONE, 19(1), e0296071. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296071
3. Vieten, C., & Lukoff, D. (2021). Spiritual and Religious Competencies in Psychology. American Psychologist, 77(1), 26–38. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000821
4. Peacock, C., Mascaro, J. S., Brauer, E., Zarrabi, A. J., Dunlop, B. W., Maples-Keller, J. L., Grant, G. H., Raison, C. L., Rab, F., & Palitsky, R. (2024b). Spiritual Health Practitioners’ Contributions to Psychedelic Assisted Therapy: A Qualitative Analysis. PLoS ONE, 19(1), e0296071. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296071
5. Rothberg, R. L., Azhari, N., Haug, N. A., & Dakwar, E. (2020). Mystical-Type Experiences Occasioned by Ketamine Mediate Its Impact on At-Risk Drinking: Results From a Randomized, Controlled Trial. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 35(2), 150–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269881120970879
6. Roseman, L., Nutt, D. J., & Carhart-Harris, R. L. (2018). Quality of Acute Psychedelic Experience Predicts Therapeutic Efficacy of Psilocybin for Treatment-Resistant Depression. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2017.00974
7. Ross, S., Agrawal, M., Griffiths, R., Grob, C., Berger, A., & Henningfield, J. (2022). Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy to Treat Psychiatric and Existential Distress in Life-Threatening Medical Illnesses and Palliative Care. Neuropharmacology, 216, 109174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropharm.2022.109174