- Psychedelic Support is a directory of licensed health professionals and community groups that provide mental health services related to psychedelic medicine and integration
- It is a sister platform to a non-profit Project New Day, focused on psychedelic treatments and services for addiction recovery
- Psychedelic Support’s Co-Founder Dr. Allison Feduccia speaks to Truffle Report about the importance of psychedelic education and community
Founded in 2018, Psychedelic Support is a platform focused on accelerating personal and global transformation by advancing responsible psychedelic-assisted therapy.
“It’s a directory of licensed health professionals that we screen to make sure that they’re a good fit for matching up with our platform,” said Dr. Feduccia. “Everyone’s working above ground. These providers are offering mental health services. They also offer integration after psychedelic experiences and can help talk to clients about ways to stay safe, if they choose to engage in psychedelics themselves. These providers offer ketamine-assisted therapy, and some offer cannabis-assisted psychotherapy if it’s legal in their state. When people come to our platform, they can search by location and what type of disorder they may have. They can also look at what type of substances the provider might be offering and some other criteria so they could hone in on a good fit provider for them.”
Educational Programs
According to Dr. Feduccia, it is important to both understand that psychedelics are part of a more holistic treatment approach, and to acknowledge the significance of the preparation, integration, and the effects of the medicines themselves. When users enter the platform, they can participate in workshops, training, and accredited courses.
“Last year, we launched some of the first continuing online self-paced medical education courses for health professionals on MDMA and psilocybin. It’s a review of over 400 peer-reviewed publications. We created these in collaboration with researchers and therapists that are working at major universities like Stanford, NYU, and UCSF, as a way of helping get people up to speed on this topic whether or not they’re going to be administered psychedelics or where to get fully trained, or to get deep into the safety effects in both medical and non-medical settings. It also covers the neurobiological and psychological mechanisms, and introduces people to the therapeutic approaches,” explained Dr. Feduccia.
“In addition to that, we also help promote other training. One of our collaborations is with Polaris Insight center, and they offer a training program for clinicians looking to administer ketamine-assisted therapy. We also have another workshop about how to start and operate a psychedelic clinic, and recently launched a free psychedelic harm reduction course. This course provides information for the general public, for people that might be considering taking psychedelics, and some things to think about if they’re going to be going to different environments whether it’s an international retreat, a festival, a house party, or at their own home. It explains how to stay safe, know about each substance’s dosing, factors that can affect the risk profile, and ways to mitigate this risk,” she continued.
“The courses are a little bit more expensive for the clinician so that they can get the continuing education credits, but we do have a lower price for public information. It is great material for students that want to get into research, or people working at university that haven’t received training or official education on these topics. It’s a great place to get a lot of information,” she said.
How Does it Work?
Psychedelic Support is funded through its multiple education programs.
“It’s free for people to join the directory. We handle the application process for the providers and clinics. As part of the application process, we interview the candidate, check their background and make sure that their license is valid, and we check their identity and online presence, to make sure that they’re aligned with our values in our requirements. After that, we add people to the directory and they can update their profiles and customize that the way they want to,” said Dr. Feduccia. “We’re building some software applications to provide more services and features on our platform. We’re also extending our educational offerings through some of our partners to include this rich content that we’ve created, as the foundational material for other training programs.”
Users can filter and search the directory and contact the providers directly. Once patients connect with therapists, they can choose their preferred method and format (in person or online) of therapy
“We’ve created a platform for professionals to come out and associate themselves with psychedelics. This is still a grey area for the professional field. By having the support in the network, it’s safer for them to offer integration services. It is a necessary directory because sometimes people have difficult challenging experiences on psychedelics, or they have emotionally opening experiences, and they want to talk to someone that has knowledge about the range of psychedelic experiences that can occur and how to work with people,” explained Dr. Feduccia.
“We don’t advertise a lot for people to join the network, we’re calling people in a way that people that are interested and drawn to this topic find us and want to participate, more so than just trying to get anybody that wants to advertise themselves as a therapist. We’re building a high-quality network of people that have the experience to deliver these therapies,” said Dr. Feduccia.
