r/PsychedelicTherapy

I have just been accepted into the certificate and I am over the moon.
I was curious based on previous discussion threads here and want to know from anyone else who did the certificate if you have any tips for me and any readings you really enjoyed plus if I can get hold of the reading list from the online library or do I need to purchase all thee books?

I really liked microdosing - gave me so many ideas and nature I experienced it so deeply… also takes away my nicotine cravings - but doc put me on ssri’s - its a low dose 25 mg setraline only since February. I don’t like these chemicals, make me feel weird. Gonna tapper it down, how soon after fully off it i can microdose again?

Hello everyone,

I wanted to share a specialized psychedelic-assisted playlist for deep-dive neuro-therapy and expanded-awareness sessions.

This arrangement is heavily inspired by the pioneering frameworks used at the Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Research Center. The goal was to create a "nonverbal support system"—something that provides a stabilizing structure without being intrusive.

**The Structure:**

**Stabilizing Entry:** Grounding frequencies to ease into the state.

**Nonverbal Support:** Carefully selected segments to maintain emotional safety.

**Somatic Integration:** Designed to support both dissociative states and deep somatic processing.

I’d love to hear from any practitioners or journeyers if this flow resonates with your experiences.

I want to try mushrooms for therapeutic purposes / healing CPTSD. However, I'm pretty sensitive so I'm wondering if there's a form of it that's psychologically gentler than others. Tea, chocolate, truffles, gummies, capsules?

Thanks.

Hi all. 22 year old guy here. Been diagnosed with depression a few months back and currently on 150mg sertraline. I believe from young I’ve had a fight or flight nervous system that’s carried over into my adult life and I oversleep, barely eat (54kg at 5 foot9). My mobility and posture is all so fucked up from being so tense over the years. However I don’t believe it’s helping me and I know it’s early but after 6 week CBT as well I don’t know if this is the solution. I start counselling for depression tomorrow. But where I’m going with this is that after reading all the effects of SSRI’s I believe that I would maybe like to try microdosing shrooms either some time after I’m off SSRI’s or even during the reduction phase, I say this because when I first had mushrooms I started crying with emotion and even 2 weeks after taking them I felt amazing. I would ideally like those who are currently on or even off SSRI’s and can give advice that would be greatly appreciated.

Hello Friends

I am 1.5 weeks from a mushroom ceremony in the Netherlands. It was with 15G truffles - I don't know which kind but it was a retreat place that has been around for many decades so I think it was probably very pure. It was AMAZING. I met God, felt ONE-ness, separated from my ego, experienced God's love and sadness with the world. Immediately afterward I felt as if I were two: my Consciousness and my ego. And that lasted for several days. I felt connected. I felt calm and was able to think before I spoke (new for me). I felt "awakened" in a sense and I could understand easily philosophical texts and writings that I previously struggled to understand.

However, over the past 3-4 days things have gotten harder. I no longer feel a clear separation. I feel like I am functioning as ego often. I feel some sadness now as a result. I feel it's harder to concentrate again. I still feel kinder toward others, but am struggling overall with the sense of having to return to my "normal" brain. I had read stories of people overcoming anxiety and depression but I feel mine creeping back in.

I am not sure if this is to be expected, or if my dose was too low (I hope not, since I don't want to do another ceremony - it was amazing, but I don't think I need any more lessons when I have learned THE lesson; we are all ONE, but is that what it takes to heal my mind from anxiety/depression)? It doesn't help my menstruation just started so that further confuses me.

For integration: I have a therapist, doing yoga, journaling.

Would love to hear from the hive mind :) Was the dose too low or is this a normal response and my expectations are too high?

I have considered microdosing as well.

Wondering for therapy.

I think i have 20 mcg. And i guess that is not enough (proper trip is arouns 100 mcg). With 20 mcg can i redose after an hour or two to go deeper? And can I up gradually?

I have experience with lsd but never this redose question. Either i took low dose or normal dose.

Edit. Love you reddit guys for sharing experience and being there. ♡♡♡

I just want to say I had planned as a ketamine session tonight (West Europe time) because I wanted to take advantage of the new moon, which happens on a very beautiful place on my chart and had great hraling potential.

But I didn't do the session.

I realized once more that I need to integrate my former sessions

Which means, in my case,

Just do nothing.

Don't try to fix anything.

Dont go after the next session.

Just relax

As you are.

This is super difficult for me to do,

And I'm scrolling reddit,

I took a hot bath, remained bush while laying down

Just à few slow breath with thêta sound

But at least I did not mess up with my nervous system and all my hormones and my cortisol and my adrenaline, Which are all already badly messed up enough.

I did have low dose lsd earlier today as a kind of prepararion for the forthcoming new moon

I dont know if it helped

Any way i wish i could Just relax

In the dark

No device

Nothing

But being here

Hello,
I am looking for some information on interaction between different psychedelics as well as ketamine. Would appreciate if anyone has any studies or sources to read about especially the safe time period between different psychedelics

So I did my first 25mg of psilocybin in Oregon last year and I am going back for my second trip 🤣 this summer. I know I want to start out with less, but am having a hard time deciding between 15 and 20.

15… I could always take a booster but I’m afraid I will be hyperfocusing while coming up about what I am feeling and if I should take more. I’m doing this because I want big change, is 15 playing it too safe? Or does the medicine do what it and the universe want regardless of how much you take?

20… is it too close to the 25? Every journey is different but I’d really prefer a little less intensity in the beginning part of my journey.

I took it in tea last time and will again. My medicines are the same. But last time I took an enzyme before the mushrooms because of my SSRI use. I’m not going to do that this time which will also in theory help that first part not be so intense.

What views do you have to help me make this decision?

Also, if you are doing your own research and haven’t yet chosen to use psilocybin, please let me provide my whole hearted support even though I mentioned an intense part of my first experience. I’ve done decades of talk therapy, IFS therapy, DBT therapy, EMDR, and brain spotting as other approaches in my journey. A few hours with the medicine was more impactful than I feel all of those things combined. I do think those things were still helpful to provide me perspective and ability to deal with big feelings and emotions.

[ETA: also somatic experiencing which clearly my brain doesn’t think about as often but was also a massive positive shift in how I feel day to day]

Much love and light to you all!

Hello! I have had life long severe anxiety and depression, I'm 32. I take medication but it only works a bit, I've been diagnosed as medication resistant. I've just finished a ketamine treatment that lasted 6 weeks which was very expensive. It worked absolutely wonderful as i was on it but now that I am done with it I'm back to square one. Panic attacks, severe depression, the whole works. I was wondering if anyone with similar issues have tried anything that works? Thank you for any help <3

Curious where people sit on structured vs. non-directive in MDMA work.

I’ve been building an app for solo MDMA sessions (m-session.com for anyone curious), and the challenge has been finding the right balance between flexibility and structure.

With LSD or mushrooms at a solid dose, trying to structure things mid-trip feels like it gets in the way of whatever’s actually happening. These psychedelics feel like they tend to force a shift in someone’s foundation, their relationship between self and world. Trust the inner healer makes sense there.

MDMA is different. You stay lucid, and defenses drop but you can still think clearly, which means you can actually do real self-work. Without some structure though, sessions tend to just feel good for a couple hours and then you’re back to baseline. The substance opens a window and structure helps you actually use it.

I’m asking because I’m trying to fine-tune how much structure the app has. Flexible enough to stay out of the way, structured enough to steer you toward deeper self work.

So, do you agree MDMA benefits from more structure than classic psychedelics? And for anyone who’s sat with people on MDMA, what’s actually been useful for structure vs what gets in the way?

Dealing with treatment resistant depression and on disability leave from work going on 3 years, so the opportunity to try psychedelics in a clinical setting was appealing to me after so many failed attempts at medication and other forms of treatment (EMDR, rTMS, ketamine, etc).

However, now that I'm a couple weeks out from my treatment session I'm worried at the degree to which I feel genuinely scared and anxious. The trial is structured in two groups, Group A receiving a dose of 25mg psilocybin at both treatment sessions and Group B receiving a placebo at the first session and the real psilocybin at the second. I have already done my first treatment session, and due to having no discernible reaction I strongly suspect it was the placebo.

However, due to the structure of the trial you are required to be in the treatment room for hours afterward for observation. This part was really hard for me, even though I had therapists sitting alongside I didn't feel we had enough of a rapport for me to really say anything and I ended up just impatiently waiting out the time. It was pretty claustrophobic and frustrating, and along with getting my vitals checked every 30 mins I just felt exhausted by the whole thing.

I'm scared of carrying these feelings into the session with the real dose. I know there are limitations to how much they can accommodate me within the bounds of trial protocol, but I'm scared at feeling trapped and alone with strangers or my previous frustration with the placebo session informing my experience in a way that turns bad and inescapably scary.

On top of that I've also gotten some life news that have been major stressors (job loss) and my blood pressure is higher than I'd like it to be (although they insist that I am still well enough to participate).

I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm basically at the doorstep of something that could really turn the tide for the first time in my life, but I can't deny that I'm not coming to this with a neutral/open mindset. Genuinely scared, both for the outcome of being trapped in an experience or lasting trauma and alternatively at the possibility of walking away from something that could actually help.

I’ll keep this honest.

I used to think the ceremony was the point. You prepare for weeks, you sit with the medicine, something cracks open, you cry, you laugh, you see some geometric patterns or grandma, you understand the universe.

Then I go home, and a few weeks later my life feels like it’s falling apart, my family and friends can no longer relate, I hate my job, and I’m back on the couch eating sweet treats wondering what happened to the person I was on that mat singing ceremony music.

This is the part almost nobody warns you about. The medicine doesn’t change your life. The medicine shows you the life you’re capable of. It shows you doorways, potentials and timelines you can aspire too.

What you do with the experience in the 90 days after is what actually changes anything.

I’ve sat with a lot of people through this now, and the ones who actually transform aren’t the ones who had the most dramatic ceremony seeing entities or finding out that they are actually Jesus.

They’re the ones who came home and did the unsexy work of metabolizing it across every part of how they live. It took me 7 years to actually integrate my first Aya ceremony. In the jungle, mid mental break. Even the medicine decided to close her doors on me as said

“I have given you everything I have and you keep coming back, we are DONE!”

And here’s what I’ve come to see: most people fail at integration because they try to integrate one thing. We focus on the relationship insight, or the career download, or the “I need to start meditating” piece. And then six months later it’s all gone, because a human being isn’t one thing.

A life is made of seven things, and the medicine touches all of them, whether you noticed it or not.

Rest; the dimension we don’t even consider a dimension. Sleep, stillness, the permission to do nothing. Almost everyone I meet who came to plant medicine “to find something” is, underneath that, exhausted. The medicine often shows you that the spiritual longing was partly a nervous system screaming for rest. Integration here looks like actually going to bed.

Play and creativity; the first thing adults give up and the last thing they think to bring back. After ceremony, people often feel a surge of creativity, dance and excitement . Most of them ignore it because it doesn’t feel productive in daily life. Then they wonder why the magic faded.

Spirituality and purpose; the obvious one. The “why” of your life. The medicine usually offers you a glimpse of this. Integration is whether you build a daily practice that keeps you in conversation with it, or whether you treat the ceremony as the practice and never come back to it. Life IS the ceremony. Practice gratitude and connect with God.

Relationships; including the one with yourself. So many ceremonies surface something about a parent, a partner, a friend. The integration question is whether you actually have the conversation you saw yourself having on the mat. Most people don’t. The insight stays, tension and resent ment surfaces and your in the same position again having the same conversation in your head a million times.

Work and finances; nobody wants to talk about this one because it feels unspiritual. But if you come home glowing and go back to a job that’s slowly killing you, the glow doesn’t last. The medicine doesn’t care that your job pays well. Integration here is hard and slow and very practical, are you willing to trade your skills and abilities and passions for something that is draining the life out of you? Knowing you can be happy if you took the step to beleive in your abilities?

Health; the body kept the score and now the body has to do the integrating. New food, new movement, new boundaries with substances. People underestimate how much of “the high” of post-ceremony life is just being clean for two weeks. Integration is whether you keep it.

Intellectual life; the dimension nobody calls a dimension. Reading, learning, being curious, letting your mind stretch and consume in daily life. After a journey, a lot of people feel a hunger to actually understand what happened to them. Feeding that hunger is part of this work. Most of us (myself guilty) doom-scroll fear and nonsense and wonder why we are in the same mental space. Breaking the cyclical pattern is one of the best things we can do for ourselves.

The reason I list all seven is because integration isn’t a single track. It’s a quiet, simultaneous re-weaving of all seven into something that holds. The ceremony is simply a doorway into the sub-conscious. You’re the one who has to walk through it and you have to do it across all of them, or the thing falls apart again.

Some practical things I’ve learned, for what they’re worth:

Journal everything down in the first 72 hours. Not for Instagram. For yourself, six months from now, when you’ve forgotten. I have read my handwriting countless times and been able to relive the wisdom and depth of that ceremony every time. The version of you than will thank you!

Pick one thing per dimension. Not seven projects, one small honest commitment in each. Walk three times a week. Call your sister. Stop drinking for a month. Read one book that’s been sitting there. Tiny things, all seven directions.

Find people who get it. Not to relive the ceremony with but to be witnessed in the boring middle months when nothing feels magical. An integration circle, a therapist who isn’t scared of this work, even one friend.

Expect a dip. Around weeks 3–6, the glow fades and the old patterns come back asking for their seat. This is not a failure. This is the actual work starting.

It’s a beautiful, sometimes terrifying door, and walking through it can be life-changing. But the door is not the room. You still have to walk into the room and live in it. That’s integration.

And the people who do it well across all seven dimensions, slowly, without drama those are the ones I have seen truly take their life into their own control.

Hi everyone
I’m planning to train as a therapist and would love some reading and video/film/documentary recs. I’m quite interested in basic level explanations of what each drug does and how and why they’re used in certain cases.
Thank you in advance

A few years ago I accidentally took a large dose of mdma. I was fine, but it was 520mg. Ever since then I’ve been unable to “journey” with ayahuasca and mushrooms. Sometimes drinking two ounces and nothing happens. Other times my body just completely rejecting the medicine. Cortisol spikes and burning sensations. Any smart folks around who may know what could have caused this and if it’s permanent?

Whether it be lust that has depleted my dopamine levels or something more specific in that lusting that has convinced me im something im not, I feel more boxed in. Before, I was connected to everything and there was this sense of peace as there was this flow state. But now its the polar opposite of that and I dont feel connected to anything.