This is an expansion on my last piece about psychedelics. Read the first one here.
In exploring what’s available on this subject, I discovered this fantastic article on the CPA (Canadian Psychedelic Association) website. Lorraine Percy and Dr. Pamela Kryskow have offered a really well thought out starting place. Please visit and read that article, and then return here to explore my supplementary comments.
Preventing harm in psychedelic use is very important to me. If you are considering beginning or continuing your psychedelic journey, I would be happy to consult with you about how to do that in a safe and effective way. You can book a consultation with me online.
I suggest that if you are considering engaging with psychedelic medicines, that you deeply consider the following ideas. This list is not meant to be fixed or rigid - as there are always risks with any kind of medicine, therapy, or other healing modality, each person must discern the level of risk they find acceptable. This list is intended to bring as many of the potential variables as possible into your awareness, so that you can make informed choices.
You can also download a free printable pdf of these consideration here.
Time:
Do not approach these medicines in a hurry, take your time and do your best to ensure a positive experience.
Do your research, speak to people who have worked with the potential guide in the past.
Do not accept a guide because you are in a hurry, or because your choices are limited at the present time.
If you are not comfortable with a particular guide, but they are the only one you have access to – keep looking. Hurry creates pressure, and pressure leads to decisions being made that are not well considered or are not fully consensual. Such decisions often cause harm.
Personal experience:
Ask specifically about both - how many times they have worked with this medicine as a participant, and how many times they have worked as a facilitator/guide with this medicine (each medicine is different). Journeying as a participant and guiding are very different, and you want someone that has experience with both - and with the specific medicine you are using.
Therapeutic Background:
You are looking for a guide that has tools when things get tough.
Experience as a participant and as a guide in non-ordinary states – not just in medicine, but in modalities like extensive meditation experience, trancework, and shamanic journeying are very helpful.
Therapeutic skills such as regression, parts work (sub-personalities), transpersonal psychology, or specific and appropriate (to you as the client) spiritual counselling skills and resources are invaluable in a guide.
If the person is “intuitive” but doesn’t have some kind of allied therapeutic training – either in a formal way or as an apprentice with significant hours of active work, you may want to pass and keep looking.
Training in how to guide/facilitate:
Generally, what I have seen offered as “formal training” in how to guide/facilitate is extremely minimal in my opinion. I note that the CPA document uses the word “instruction” which is indeed more accurate in describing what current “formal training” looks like.
Be aware that most of the legally sanctioned training programs – especially during COVID - are in the majority online and theoretical, and usually include fewer than 5 active medicine sessions as both participant and facilitator combined (if any at all!). After that, the person is “certified” as a Guide.
It is becoming more common that individuals who have never had a medicine experience before are signing up for these courses as it is a “growth industry” and “career path”. Therefore, a “certified guide” may have a paper, and be offering services, and still be woefully unprepared for the varieties of manifestation that this work potentiates. Thus, the specific questions suggested in this blog and the CPA article are important to ask.
Co-Therapist/Guide/Assistant:
Personally, I would recommend never working with a lone guide, period. Take the time to also meet and speak to the assistant/co-facilitator one-on-one and ask, “If the main guide were to do or say something you felt was inappropriate during the session, could you and would you be able to intervene to prevent harm?”
Beware of sycophants. If the assistant is clearly enamoured with the main guide, it may indicate blind spots and is a major red flag. A very simple question to ask yourself is, “if I needed help to get to the bathroom, or needed help to change my clothing, would I feel safe with one or both of these guides helping me to do that?” If you wouldn’t feel comfortable with at least one of the guides helping you in such a situation, then please keep looking.
Mentorship and Supervision for Guide:
One of the major problems caused by the current prohibition of psychedelics is that guides/therapists cannot be totally open about their practice which leads to people working in isolation. Even so, your guide(s) should be connected to a community. A good reason to explore several guides is that it will give you an option of someone to contact and inform should anything untoward happen.
The Guide’s Role in Preparation, Facilitation, and Integration:
Any potential Guide should be offering more than just facilitation of a session or sessions.
A comprehensive Guide should offer preparatory sessions (more than one) to discuss the specifics of the medicine(s) being used, appropriate dosage, what might be expected, setting intentions, the form of practice in the session, intentions, modalities that are possible with the guide(s) etc.
Preparation should provide you with a lot to think about and some concrete choices to make which should be clear to you before the ceremony.
There should also be a concrete plan for integration sessions (more than one) after the active medicine session – dates and times. Integration is recognized as perhaps the most important aspect of a medicine experience, and too often I have seen this component completely dropped or poorly handled (ie. a brief phone call 2 weeks after the event is not enough to qualify as integration).
Something that is often overlooked is that the Guide should also be willing to connect with your partner or family to answer questions and be a resource before and after ceremony.
How do they see the role of the ‘inner healer/wisdom’?
There are many approaches to guiding medicine work, from very uninvolved (mostly watching and preventing a person from physically injuring themselves) to therapy heavy (lots of involvement through speech, touch, energy work etc.) to fully shamanic (in which the guide may be intentionally shaping the tone, content, activity, and atmosphere). None of these are “right” or “wrong” in any absolute way. The key is to be clear what you are looking for and wanting in your experience. It is deeply unsatisfying to be wanting one kind of experience, and to receive something way on the other end of the spectrum.
What is their plan in case of emergency (of any kind):
Particularly in the case where the guide is also in medicine (even microdosing). The guide should have a support available to them (by phone is an option) that will be actually available throughout the session and stone cold sober should there be an emergency for which outside help is required. Participants should also have such an external support person available to them as well. These support people should be aware of what is going on, and familiar enough with medicine work that they won’t panic, judge, or freak out, and can be counted on to show up if needed.
Setting
Setting is of critical importance. If you are engaging in medicine for anything outside of recreation (and arguably even then) I strongly suggest that you do not have your session or ceremony in the place where you live. All of your “stuff” - belongings and your personal and relational history in the place, can become dominant factors in ceremony; not to mention that unexpected visitors are always a possibility, and having the Guide answer your door to try to explain to that visitor why you are not able to come to the door can be really awkward. Also, medicine work can draw forward difficult material, trauma, and painful emotions. You don’t want to think and feel “this is where it happened” every time you go into your living room.
Transportation:
It can be really helpful to be delivered to the session and to be picked up from the session. Don’t pre-arrange the specific time for pick up. Give an estimate and arrange to call when you feel ready.
Afterwards:
Arrange to have some time and space afterwards. Don’t rush back to work, or kids, or responsibilities of any kind. It’s best to give yourself as much time as you possibly can before jumping back into life-as-it-was.
Ceremony/Ritual
Depending on the context any ceremony and ritual offered may or may not be flexible. If you are working with a ritualist or shamanic practitioner that works in a specific way, they may not be open to adding or subtracting any elements, as every aspect of ritual is purposeful and intentional. Other guides may be totally open to collaborative creativity in shaping ceremony. Again, neither is right or wrong – just be clear what you want, and how your potential guide works, and be sure there is alignment between the all parties.
How long will the guide(s) stay with you after the treatment/ceremony?
In my opinion, there is only one right answer. “Until all of the participants feel comfortable with the Guides leaving” (or until all of the participants have left themselves). One of the most common issues human beings suffer from are abandonment issues.
Having a ceremony come to a hurried end, and having the guides leave when participants are still in medicine because the guides have “somewhere else to be” is harmful and can potentially undo any beneficial work of the hours of ceremony/session before. Be wary if your potential Guides are over-busy. If in your interactions before ceremony they are running late, and running behind, or have to rush off - it’s likely that their conduct will be the same during your ceremony.
Which medicine and what dose will be used?
The key here is that well in advance of the session, you should have enough knowledge to make an informed decision about how much medicine you will be using in your session.
Understand what psycholytic, psychedelic, and “heroic” doses are in terms of the specific medicine you are using. Familiarize yourself with the concept of “topping up”.
Understand that there can be as much as an hour delay in the onset of effects (not peak) after a medicine is consumed.
If it’s your first experience with a particular medicine, take a long view and plan for another session rather than “going big” to try to “fix” everything in one go. “Going big” may end up being far more unpleasant than you can possibly imagine. It is far better to have a mild experience and know that next time you can tolerate more, than to take more than you can manage and have a potentially traumatic experience. Because of the delay between consumption and onset of medicine, a common issue is slow onset leading to over consumption, leading to being in over your head. Remember, you can’t untake psychedelic medicines. Once the train has left the station, you are on the ride for the duration and to the end of the line.
*Of special note here, be totally clear and in agreement with the Guide about specifically which medicines are being used in the ceremony well in advance. This allows you to do your own research and act in an informed and consensual way.
If at the beginning of a ceremony/session the Guide introduces or suggests more/different medicines that have not been discussed and that you have not had an opportunity to understand, research, consider, and consent to in an unpressured environment – decline them. I would argue that if this happens you should stop immediately, cancel the session, and find another guide.
Closing words:
Psychedelic medicines are powerful tools of transformation, and with all things that are powerful it is best to exercise a great deal of care when using them. To be clear everything I have offered above is offered freely. Assuming you are an adult, you can choose to ignore anything I’ve offered. As most psychedelics currently remain technically illegal to possess or consume, naturally I cannot condone or recommend their use. This article has been written in a spirit of harm prevention.