Psychedelic therapist training programmes are not fit for purpose

However, most training programmes for these professionals do not focus enough on skills acquisition and we are simply not training enough therapists to meet the growing demand. This will not fix the nation’s mental health crisis.

Don’t believe me? Look at the variance in outcomes between therapists. Look at the sheer number of people in England who are prescribed antidepressants by their GP. The figure now stands at more than 8 million people, with over 2 million having been taking them for five years. Look at the number of people on waiting lists to start therapy. It all points to a fundamental problem where many people, with a common mental health problem, are unable to access therapy that works.

One of the reasons lies in the way we train therapists. On most training programmes, students are assessed as competent to practice through their academic writing and the submission of one or two, self-selected, recordings of therapy sessions. They typically have a placement to apply their new skills. However, unlike other healthcare professionals, these sessions occur behind closed doors, without direct observation. Imagine training a nurse, a surgeon or a dentist like this.

This lack of direction observation makes it difficult to know what the trainee is doing with their patients, whether they can consistently deliver therapy with fidelity to the therapy model, and how they interact with patients/clients. It makes it difficult to give the trainee meaningful feedback that will enable them to become better at what they do.

The system encourages higher and higher academic qualifications. However, in my own experience of teaching and supervising mental health professionals, there is no association between competence and the level of academic qualification. Dare I say it, but it is not necessary to have a degree in order to be a highly effective therapist.

This is why Clerkenwell Health has recently launched their Foundations Programme – a practitioner programme for healthcare professionals interested in Psychedelic Assisted Therapy (PAT). Programme participants will be provided with the knowledge required to prepare to safely, ethically and effectively deliver psychedelic treatments.

As we move towards a future where Psychedelic Assisted Therapy (PAT) becomes more mainstream in treating metal health disorders, we must ensure all training programmes robustly assess whether a trainee can consistently deliver high quality therapy that makes measurable difference to patients’ lives. This is what really matters.

Clerkenwell Health’s Foundations Programme leaves no stone unturned. The course explores both the ethical and practical aspects surrounding psychedelic treatments within a regulated healthcare setting, with the teaching delivered by practitioners at the forefront of psychedelic research in the UK, including Dr Sara Tai, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Manchester; Dr David Luke, Associate Professor of Psychology; and Dr Jules Evans, the writer, philosopher and award-winning author of Philosophy for Life.

I asked one organisation, that provides training in PAT, how they selected their trainees, and I was told that it was done “with the gut”. The current approach runs the risk of training a new workforce who are not fit for purpose.

What’s more, all of the existing programmes use ‘psychedelic-psychobabble’. Trainees are taught to ‘trust the medicine’, ‘trust your instinct’ or ‘trust that the participant has the power to heal themselves’. These terms are not widely understood within mainstream healthcare and have, in some cases, led to acts of gross misconduct.

We need a more sober, science-led and evidence-based approach to training. Clerkenwell Health’s Foundations Programme tries to achieve this by providing learners with a thorough background in the history, current state of evidence, treatment modalities, putative mechanisms of actions, and future of psychedelics.

Patient safety, robust standards and clinical effectiveness are of utmost importance in our work at Clerkenwell Health. It’s for these reasons that we’ve launched the Foundations Programme, a course which carefully selects its trainees, assesses their competence and efficacy and is scientifically and theoretically robust. This is not the place where you can try out some psychedelics and suddenly feel qualified to be a psychedelic assisted therapist. This is the place where healthcare professionals come to train in evidence-based practices that are proven and safe. PAT must grasp the golden opportunity to set the standard for a new paradigm in mental healthcare.

If you’re interested in learning more about Clerkenwell Health’s Foundations Programme, you can find out more here: https://training.clerkenwellhealth.com/foundations

This article was written by Dr Sarah Bateup, Scientific Advisor at Clerkenwell Health. Sarah has delivered over 30,000 hours of therapy and taught at Kings College London and Exeter University before joining ieso digital health where she helped scale the company from 10 therapists to 1000.