The first psychedelic facilitators at the Changa Institute passed their final exams. The 13 individuals will become the first physicians in the United States to be licensed to guide patients through psychedelic experiences outside of clinical trials. A recent surge in psychedelic research has revealed that hallucinogenic drugs can potentially treat certain mental health disorders. These studies have found that when paired with talk therapy, psychedelic treatment can offer long-term relief against conditions such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
However, since the psychedelic-assisted therapy segment is still entirely new, there are rarely any clinicians trained to guide patients through psychedelic experiences. Addressing this shortage will be crucial if the psychiatric industry plans on adopting psychedelic therapies in its fight against mental health disorders. The cohort at the Changa Institute will be the first group of physicians to fill in this labor gap.
The Changa Institute launched an accelerated psilocybin facilitation training program in early January with licensing and approval from the higher education board. The 10-week course provides students with intensive training on psilocybin facilitation and is designed to serve people from different lifestyles and backgrounds. It covers relevant topics, such as ethical and legal considerations, harm reduction, and the science and history of psilocybin. After 10 weeks of intensive training, research, practice and tests, the first group graduated on March 12, 2023.
The practitioners are now the first to receive psilocybin facilitation licenses in America in over half a century. Their graduation represented a major milestone for the Changa Institute and the psychedelic-assisted therapy field as a whole.
Changa Institute founder and director Lisa Ginzburg called the graduation of the inaugural group of psilocybin facilitators a “significant accomplishment” for the institute. She said the institute was excited to see the group bring its knowledge and expertise to the psychedelic therapy field and contribute to the scientific literature on psilocybin and its potential therapeutic applications.
Jeannette Small, a clinical psychologist who worked with gangs and violent offenders in California, is one of the institute’s first graduates. Having seen firsthand how patients react to different medications, she says psilocybin therapy differs from conventional mental health treatments. She said the psychedelic allows patients to lower their emotional guards and address past trauma in a way that traditional treatments simply cannot.
Small and her fellow students plan to open a psilocybin service center in Oregon where she plans to help violent offenders as clinical trials and the psychedelic community often ignore them.
Startups such as atai Life Sciences N.V. (NASDAQ: ATAI) will be pleased that other interested parties are addressing the staffing needs of the fast-growing psychedelic therapy industry.
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