Therapist Integration

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📋 In this issue

• The genesis story of why I'm so passionate about helping other therapists discover psychedelic-assisted therapy.

📢 Announcements

• Survey is out. Seeking licensed therapists to complete this 5-minute survey to help prioritize future material and resources.
• New Email List Subcribe page is up! Encourage your colleagues to subscribe here.

🕒 Coming Soon

• I've been surveying therapists and it's clear there are concerns about risk. So I'm developing material around the risks and mitigation strategies therapists use when approaching psychedelic harm reduction and integration therapy. Next newsletter we'll start diving in!

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Part of me thinks I’m crazy. 10,000 is a big number. But then I’m reminded nearly 60 million people in US alone are suffering from mental health issues. We’re going to need a lot of therapists!
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Read the story:

Why I’m on a mission to help 10,000 licensed therapists become confident and skilled at psychedelic integration therapy.

Why 10,000? There are half a million therapists and 1,000 isn't enough.

As a licensed therapist specialized in PTSD, I was trained and certified as an EMDR therapist. Every day for years I was helping people overcome and heal from trauma with what to me seemed like the most groundbreaking therapy option out there, EMDR.
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Then around 2018, a client returned from MDMA assisted therapy and reported a life-changing perspective shift. I was skeptical to say the least. I probed with a common line of questioning I used with EMDR clients to help me verify change of perspective, insight, and ultimately, healing. I was shocked to discover this client seemed to have experienced the same depth of healing and insight I would have expected from several EMDR sessions. It got my attention.
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From 2018-2021 I had similar experiences with other clients. Another client who traveled to experience an ayahuasca ceremony and shared a purging that helped them let go of traumatic experiences. One who was severely suicidal and saw their ideations lift after a few ketamine infusions. Another who despite my warnings, would use psilocybin to look inward to identify and work through root issues with shocking success.
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All the while, I stumbled around trying to be helpful and reduce harm. Expressing warnings on the one hand, while being deeply interested and helping clients process their experiences on the other. It was a confusing and uncomfortable position to be in, but I was no longer able to ignore what I was witnessing.
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So I decided to do something about it. I dove into the research. I read Michal Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind and got a crash course on the deep history and re-emerging field of psychedelic therapy and related research. I consumed as much information as I could. I learned classical psychedelics have a lower addiction profile than most legal substances and are relatively safe from overdose, which eased a lot of my concern.
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As I learned more, it became glaringly obvious to me that psychedelic-assisted therapy is going to change the field of mental health, and I cannot ignore it.
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In 2022 I had an opportunity to attend the 100 hour MAPS training in MDMA-Assisted Therapy for PTSD. The training was led by Michael and Annie Mithoefer, two amazing humans who served as lead clinicians guiding the MAPS research trials to receive “breakthrough therapy” status by the FDA. I gained a tremendous amount of knowledge and understanding into the science and clinical approach toward psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Identifying the problems (and solutions)

Stuck in an agency that wouldn’t support it and longing for a day where clients could benefit from this type of healing, I began to think of ways to bring this information to more therapists. Perhaps if enough therapists call for change, agencies will listen?
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I noticed there was a lot of gatekeeping with overpriced training offerings that would be a barrier to therapists getting involved, so I ended up creating a free online collection of close to 70 psychedelic-assisted therapy learning materials that I was able to find on the internet. This became the Open Source Psychedelic-Assisted Therapist (OSPAT) training. You’ve probably never heard of it because it’s hosted on a platform used by computer programmers called GitHub (chosen because of the open-source focus... anyone can become a contributor, even you!), but I invite you to check it out if you want to dive into this topic further.
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Over the past year I started to notice an additional problem in the space. Nearly everything I’ve read or watched (books, videos, trainings, etc.) seems to really focus on the experiential stage (stage 2) of psychedelic-assisted therapy. This is the stage where a drug is administered and providers sit with and guide clients through an altered ego state.
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While it’s imperative therapists are familiar with the experiential stage for psychedelic therapy to be successful, there are two problems with this being the primary focus at this point in time. One is obvious and the other not so much.
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1. The obvious one: regulations have not caught up. There are limited examples of when a licensed therapist could legally provide the experiential stage of psychedelic-assisted therapy.
2. Less obvious but incredibly important: the experiential stage of psychedelic-assisted therapy is only one of three stages. The other two do not involve use of drugs. Any competent, licensed therapist could perform stages 1 (preparation) and 3 (integration) with a little education and guidance.

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In an emerging field, I see a lot of opportunity to help licensed therapists gain confidence and skills in the preparation and integration phases of therapy. Even when the drugs become legally regulated, the bulk of psychedelic-assisted therapy will still exist in the integration phase of therapy (absent of the drugs, in the short time after an experience has occured).

My emphasis on stages 1 and 3.

From a harm reduction standpoint, we know suffering individuals will learn of the promising outcomes being shown by research and will try psychedelics on their own. It’s important we have licensed, ethical therapists to provide sound guidance before or after those ambitious, health-seeking clients pursue psychedelic therapy on their own. And it's important we educate and encourage the masses to combine these experiences with pre and post therapy in order to really experience the level of healing being shown by research.
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So, there’s more beyond the goal of helping 10,000 licensed therapists gain confidence and skills to provide psychedelic integration therapy. My fundamental drive is to minimize risk and ensure ethical, compassionate, healing care is accessible to the millions of people who are suffering and are seeking psychedelic-assisted therapy now and in the coming years.​
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If that’s something you want to help with, I’d sure appreciate it! There are a few things you can do right now:
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1. If you’re a therapist, complete this survey to help me identify the areas therapists need the most support and prioritize needed resources:https://forms.gle/AX8P3doCYiq1Qwke8. Then share it with your therapist colleagues :)
2. If you’re not a therapist but know one personally, share this with them! Encourage them to complete the survey as well. The more data I have the more valuable the resources I’m building will be for therapists and their clients.
3. Engage thoughtfully in discussions about psychedelic-assisted therapy. Read the research. Try to understand what the experience is like from those who have participated. Be open-minded and compassionate. Be curious about the preconceived notions people have and patient as they integrate new information. Educate and advocate from an informed, grounded approach.

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Together, we can advance the field of mental health and bring this healing therapy to the millions of people who are suffering right now.

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​View the web version of the above article.​

Thanks for reading! More to come soon.

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Christopher Brown, LICSW

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