Psychedelic Affirming Education

Hello Reader, Years ago, a client came to me after leaving a therapist she'd been seeing for six months. She had told her previous therapist she was curious about taking psilocybin to help with her PTSD. Not that she had done it. Not that she was planning to. Just that she was curious and wanted to talk about the possibility. Her therapist's response: "I won't discuss that with you. And if you want to self-medicate with drugs, I won't be able to continue working with you." So she stopped...

Hello Reader, Here's what scope of practice confusion actually looks like in psychedelic work, and why both directions cause harm. The over-referral version: a client mentions curiosity about psilocybin for depression. The clinician isn't sure what they're supposed to do with that, so they deflect. Maybe they suggest the client "find a specialist." Maybe they just redirect the session. The client gets the message: this isn't something you can bring here. The conversation ends. The clinician...

Hello Reader, The course I mentioned last week is open! Here's everything you need to decide. Psychedelics and the Therapeutic Frame: Foundations for Licensed Clinicians is a 3-CE-hour course for licensed mental health professionals who want a grounded clinical foundation in psychedelic-informed practice without committing to a year-long facilitation track. It covers pharmacology, scope of practice, first-contact skills, documentation, and ethics. It's built for the practice you're already...

Hello Reader, A client mentions, fifteen minutes before the hour is up, that they took psilocybin at a friend's place a few weeks ago. What are your first words? Most of us were never trained for that moment, and it matters more than almost anything that follows. How you receive a disclosure determines whether the conversation continues at all, and what it contains. Get the first thirty seconds wrong and the client learns to stop talking. That's the gap I keep running into, in my own practice...

She came to my office after doing a full series at a ketamine clinic. Six infusions. She sat in a recliner each time, tablet in hand. She could watch videos, play games, and listen to her own music. A nurse checked on her regularly. Nobody talked to her about what she might encounter or what to do with it afterward. She had depression and PTSD. She left confused and disappointed. She was hoping for something more than a dissociative hour with Netflix. From fewer than 100 clinics in 2015, the...

A facilitator emailed me a few weeks ago asking whether any of my courses counted toward OPS renewal. A few weeks after that, someone else, an LPC and psilocybin facilitator, bought a course specifically for OPS credit, then wrote back to ask if it would also count toward her therapy board renewal. Both times: yes. What struck me wasn't the answer. It was that they had to ask at all. Two changes to Oregon Psilocybin Services took effect January 1, 2026. Both are significant. Neither has been...

A few sessions in, my new client mentioned using nitrous at a show. They said it as casually as mentioning a glass of wine. I had already asked about inhalant use; they said no. They were not lying. They just didn’t think nitrous was covered by that question. This is about categorization, not disclosure. Most people think "inhalants" means glue or solvents, not nitrous. Nitrous carries different risks and cultural meanings. Lumping them together leads to bad data and honest mistakes....