What is Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy?
Psychedelic-assisted therapy involves working with a licensed therapist to process your psychedelic experience and alleviate suffering from mental illness.
These therapy sessions may be part of a more extensive psychotherapy process or a short-term visit to integrate a meaningful experience. A clinician cannot administer most psychedelic drugs to you (except at legal ketamine clinics and clinical trials) but will work with you before and after the experience.
Unlike a coach, a therapist has higher education degrees as well as clinical and psychedelic training. These degrees can include a Ph.D., PsyD., M.S., M.A., LMHC, LICSW, or others. Psychedelic therapists can also recognize and diagnose mental health conditions, including anxiety, treatment-resistant depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, trauma, eating disorders, and more. Therapists must be licensed to practice, and they are held accountable for their actions by a code of ethics and a licensing board.
Through therapy sessions following personal psychedelic use, trained clinicians help you glean insights from your journeys to heal from past trauma, develop healthier coping strategies, and examine unhealthy thought patterns. Often, these therapists use psychedelic integration as a larger part of their therapeutic process, which may involve other kinds of therapy, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), somatic therapy, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR).
