Michael Pollan, author of the best-selling book How to Change Your Mind, had a big impact on my life. His article “The Trip Treatment” in The New Yorker in February 2015 alerted me to the renewed clinical research on the use of psychedelics for medical treatment. What I read about how effective it’s been to treat cancer anxiety with psilocybin excited me so much that I went looking for any available programs for training psychotherapists to do this important work. Lo and behold, I discovered that the California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco has launched the country’s first certificate program in psychedelics-assisted psychotherapy. At the Psychedelic Science 2017 conference in Oakland, California, organized by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), I met the woman who envisioned and oversees the program, Janis Phelps, along with many participants in the first cohort of trainees. Altogether these experiences inspired me to enroll in the year-long program (officially called the Certificate Program in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research, or CPTR), which I’m halfway through.

Michael Pollan sat in on our first weekend of training in March and incorporated his observations into an article (“My Adventures with the Trip Doctors”) adapted from his book that appeared in the Sunday New York Times Magazine in mid-May. It offers a good summary of his book and the state of psychedelic research. How to Change Your Mind and Tom Shroder’s book Acid Test: LSD, Ecstasy, and the Power to Heal impressed upon me the rich potential of psychedelics for treating depression, addictions, and post-traumatic stress disorder as well as for “the betterment of well people,” in the words of Bob Jesse, creator of the Council on Spiritual Practices.

Readers of this blog may look forward to more posts on this subject.