Back to Psychedelic Assisted Therapy
This blog post is Part 2 in our series written by Dr. Alex Ertl that follows his educational journey of becoming a Natural Medicine Clinical Facilitator (providing psychedelic assisted therapy) in the state of Colorado through the Natural Medicine Health Act. The content is for educational purposes only. It does not constitute medical, legal, or mental health advice and does not promote or facilitate illegal activity.
Hello again! So much has happened since my last entry. Thus far, psychedelic assisted therapy (PAT) training has exceeded my expectations, even with my expectations being high. In turn, I find myself even more excited to share the gift of this therapy with others. There are so many facets of this learning journey that excite me, so it is difficult for me at first to know where to begin. To help orient myself, I’ll list the main themes that I find running through my mind and my heart at this moment, even if I don’t fully expand upon all of them in this entry:
To put this writing in context, I’ve attended my first two of seven intensive full-day trainings, attended eight hours of classroom-style learning, had my first cohort-specific small group meeting, and have engaged in reading and other self-paced learning. The learning has become a main focal point of my weekly and monthly routine, and I have been having a sense of immersion into the material.
As I have gone on this dive into the deep end, it’s becoming clearer in which ways this learning process and Psilocybin Assisted Therapy itself are both very similar and dissimilar to standard psychotherapy training.
For one, a message that keeps coming up is that I am not the therapist; the mushroom is the therapist.
In our training, we discussed Carl Rogers and person-centered therapy at length, really emphasizing the innate healing ability within people that they can access if they can be witnessed and engaged by an attuned, empathic person.
I remember back in one of my grad school practica, I showed session tape to a supervisor and told them I was practicing from a person-centered stance in the session. After two minutes of watching, she told me that I certainly was not, helping me see that I was doing much more than Carl Rogers would do in a session by way of leading the client rather than being more attuned and reflective. It was a terrific learning point for me of what it meant to be informed by a client-centered approach compared to practicing an unadulterated client-centered approach.
All of this is to emphasize the beauty that, in PAT, the facilitator does embody that non-directive approach that Rogers embodied and allows for clients to rely on what is commonly referred to as their “inner healing intelligence.”
So, in a way, I get to rely on my psychologist training and pull in approaches I have been long familiar with. But also, I will be challenged to drop many of the interventions that I would typically rely on in the therapy room.
I’ll also say that, for whatever reason, I’m finding this training experience to be evocative for me. That is to say, I’ve had many instances recently of asking myself personal questions like, “Hmm, why do I do this?” or “Why am I like this?” I find myself, for the first time in a while, insatiably hungry for self-knowledge.
There’s probably a lot with the learning process that has stoked this fire, but at the center, I’ve grown to appreciate the uniquely vulnerable state that people enter on psychedelics, which in turn calls for a very self-aware and intentional facilitator.
There’s a reverence that I am absorbing for just how much we are meeting people at the core of their psyche with psychedelic medicine, where we bypass so many of the patterns of behavior that keep us in line with social expectations and keep us guarded from ourselves. And I realize that if I have too many places where I am guarded from or unaware of myself, then I may inadvertently shut down a client’s process.
This isn’t different from talk-based psychotherapy, but I am feeling it to a greater degree, and thus far I have welcomed this opportunity to approach myself with new wonderment and curiosity.
I’ll at least also mention some of the other factors that have supported this curiosity in myself.
One is that the instructors of this program have been phenomenal in their roles. In watching them perform role plays and hearing how they discuss topics like consent, trauma-informed care, navigating dual roles, etc., it’s been clear that these folks have indeed cultivated the self-awareness and wisdom needed to hold people safely in exceptionally vulnerable states. So, this personally inspires me to move toward the qualities that they embody.
I’ll also shout out my wonderful community of peers in the learning process, who have been welcoming, unguarded, and generally loving people, even in the short time we have known each other.
Similar to Carl Rogers’ clients with him, I feel safe enough in this group so that I may move toward growth.
I’d also like to take a moment to name the growing appreciation I have developed for where psilocybin and other psychedelics fit within a larger context.
The history of psilocybin is fascinating, exciting, and at times heartbreaking. This is something I’d be excited to talk more about in a future Continuing Education course. But in the large scheme of things, it is hard to practice this work without an understanding of where it fits in the larger picture.
In some ways, we are on a new frontier, as PAT has been legal to practice here in Colorado for barely six months. So, in a way, this is new. But in a larger context, this practice has been interwoven into the culture, religion, and practice of people around the world for thousands of years.
I’m continually learning the importance of finding ways to appreciate and consider the wisdom that Indigenous communities have accumulated over generations while also not engaging in cultural appropriation by superficially borrowing customs.
On a practical level, I’ve appreciated that the program not only has cultivated self-awareness and provided philosophical and contextual underpinnings of this work, but I’m feeling stronger in the sets of practical skills that I will need.
While there are some non-specific factors that go into the work of PAT, there is a strong need for a framework and skillsets within the therapy. For instance, there is stronger emphasis on the potential use of supportive touch within PAT.
There is actually a supportive touch contract in the intake forms that Colorado’s Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) requires prior to administering psilocybin. Prior to any administration of psilocybin, the client and facilitator set incredibly clear guidelines on how, if any, touch may be used. Agreements are made between facilitator and client on how touch may be used during a journey session, such as, “If you ask, I will place a hand on your shoulder, but I will not offer this unless requested.”
I could expand upon this a lot more, but I mention it here just to serve as an example of needing to unlearn a lot of what I have become accustomed to as a psychologist (basically, “No touching!”), and I am appreciative of the skillset and practical knowledge that I am learning as part of this program.
In reflection, I’m noticing that I’m just touching upon the tip of the iceberg with each of these thoughts that I’ve written about above.
I feel as if I could speak for hours on any one of these, and have probably been engaged in several hours of reflection on each of them thus far. Maybe as my training progresses, I’ll spend some time on depth rather than breadth in this writing.
But for now, I have so much to share, and everything feels equally important. I hope that this has brought some knowledge, curiosity, or otherwise enlivened you. I will be writing again in a month.
We’ll keep you posted on upcoming CE trainings and new services from our center.
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