Psychedelic-assisted Therapy Training: Firsthand Experience of Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness in the Development of Competence
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction This review explores the benefits of incorporating personal experience(s) with non-ordinary states of consciousness as a core component of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (PaT) training. The program incorporates an optional experiential training component. We collaborate with professionals affiliated with a Canadian non-profit organization specializing in PaT experiential training. As do other stakeholders in this field– including program developers, educators, and researchers–we navigate a rapidly evolving and often ambiguous landscape, where infrastructure and regulations are lagging scientific data and best practices. Given the potential for differing perspectives, the authors acknowledge that their personal experiences could be a potential source of bias, influencing objectivity. Objectives Conversely, these lived experiences could be seen as valuable contributions, enriching perspectives on the role of experiential training. In that context, our intention is to provide a comprehensive review, presenting arguments both in favour of and against the integration of experiential training in PaT. Methods There is an urgent need for establishing legal training and practice options, bridging the underground with best practices, with all practitioners operating within a regulated and ethically accountable framework. Such a proactive strategy would mitigate the risks associated with unregulated training in a field with relatively few guidelines on how to develop competency. Results An in-training PaT experience supports personal comfort, self-assuredness, and confidence supporting others in non-ordinary states of consciousness, with contemporary researchers/experts highlighting the specific challenges among therapists who lack lived experience. These might include holding unrealistic expectations, being unaware of the impacts of set and setting, and misunderstanding Conclusions Whether or not therapists engage in experiential training - serving a dual in one’s own healing process, it is imperative that they maintain their own wellness practices. This proactive/primary prevention strategy would improve well-being and resilience, reducing secondary mental health consequences for patients and providers. Cultivating a culture of self-care within the mental health field should be an overarching priority for training programs and professional organizations, without which we are left with broken people in support of broken people. Current rates of burnout, absenteeism and early retirement suggest that we are already on that trajectory and should serve as a call to action. Disclosure of Interest None Declared
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".