Certificate in Psychedelic Assisted Therapy

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The provision of a supportive therapeutic setting prior to, during, and following drug administration is now the standard of care in the majority of uses of psychedelic medications for the treatment of psychiatric disorders. To fill this requirement, a variety of psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) models and certifications (CPAT) have been developed to ensure the guiding clinician is sufficiently competent. Many courses worldwide have been created using guidelines specifically developed in the US[1]. These include:

  • Embark[2] - Canadian / US proprietary training created by Cybin ltd first released in June 2022.
  • CPAT - Australian proprietary training created by Mind Medicine Australia.

By comparing and contrasting each offering a new Open Source Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy has been developed. Below is a brief summary of the analysis.

CPAT Content

The majority of PAP models have drawn influence from 3 main sources[3]:

  • Early work of PAP pioneers - mainly Grof, Greer and Tolbert and Stolaroff.
  • Indigenous approaches[4]
  • Non-psychedelic therapeutic approaches[5]

However, one often neglected source of data is accumulated by people who use psychedelics (PWUP) outside of clinical contexts[6]. All sources highlight the need for controlling three key parameters:

  1. Patient attributes: medical exclusions, psychological framing.
  2. Setting attributes: music, light, furnishing, nature immersion[7].
  3. Clinician attributes: background, experience, theoretical certification (such as CPAT)

CPAT Structure

All PAT training models training the practitioner to concentrate on three key phases of therapy[8]. Preparation sessions make up the first stage and are intended to get individuals ready to benefit from the medication. The second stage of therapy is referred to as the medicine session(s), which refers to the period when medication is administered. The third phase, often known as "integration"[9] involves a process of reflection on the medicine session and how it could motivate cognitive and behavioural changes that last after the course of therapy.

Clinical Governance

Due to the inducement of a neuroplastic state the vulnerability of the patient increases. Conduct of practice should be guided by a specific code of ethics and followed by a transparent clinical governance mechanism.


References

  1. Developing Guidelines and Competencies for the Training of Psychedelic Therapists. Phelps, J. (2017). Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 57(5), 450–487. doi:10.1177/0022167817711304
  2. Models of Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy: A Contemporary Assessment and an Introduction to EMBARK, a Transdiagnostic, Trans-Drug Model. William Brennan and Alexander B. Belser. Cybin, Inc., Toronto, ON, Canada and Fordham University, New York City, NY, United States. Front. Psychol., 02 June 2022 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.866018
  3. Phelps, J. (2017). Developing Guidelines and Competencies for the Training of Psychedelic Therapists. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 57(5), 450–487. doi:10.1177/0022167817711304
  4. The role of Indigenous knowledges in psychedelic science. Fotiou, E. (2020). J. Psychedelic Stud. 4, 16–23. doi: 10.1556/2054.2019.031
  5. Psychedelics and the new behaviourism: considering the integration of third-wave behaviour therapies with psychedelic-assisted therapy. Walsh, Z., and Thiessen, M. S. (2018). Int. Rev. Psychiatry 30, 343–349. doi: 10.1080/09540261.2018.1474088
  6. Presence, Trust, and Empathy: Preferred Characteristics of Psychedelic Carers. Thal S, Engel LB, Bright SJ. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. March 2022. doi:10.1177/00221678221081380
  7. Virtual Reality as a Moderator of Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy Agnieszka D. Sekula1,2*, Luke Downey1,3 and Prashanth Puspanathan2 1 Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC, Australia, 2 Enosis Therapeutics Pty. Ltd., Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 3 Institute for Breathing and Sleep, Austin Hospital, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  8. The Psychotherapeutic Framing of Psychedelic Drug Administration. Front. Psychol., Sec. Psychology for Clinical Settings. Published: 02 June 2022, accessed on 9th August 2022 via: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.866018
  9. Psychedelic harm reduction and integration: a transtheoretical model for clinical practice. Gorman, I., Nielson, E. M., Molinar, A., Cassidy, K., and Sabbagh, J. (2021). Front. Psychol. 12:645246. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.645246

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