Psychedelic Retreat informed by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, with one-to-one follow up integration

This programme is aimed at mental health professionals interested in becoming psychedelic-assisted therapists, psychedelic therapists interested in an ACT-informed psychedelic experience and those wishing to better support people in integrating psychedelic experience. There is currently a psychedelic research renaissance involving sizeable clinical trials in both Europe and the USA. The current results suggest unprecedented success rates for depression, addictions and more. With such trials underway, psilocybin is expected be medically licensed in the next 3 years.
The purpose of this retreat is to prepare and connect those interested in such developments. If you are interested in collaborating on future retreats like this, you are especially welcome.

The Programme: This four and a half day retreat + two month (average length) integration programme consists of:

Day 1: Arrival (in the afternoon) and preparation: approaching the psychedelic experience as an opportunity for personal growth, leaning into challenging emotions and opening to a flexible sense of self.

All are welcome to use the sauna.

Day 2: Self-as-context meditation breath and bodywork – you are not your programming. Afternoon ceremony – with Psilocybin Truffles, you embark on your psychedelic journey with the support of sober mental health professionals.

Day 3: What is still coming up? Being in your direct experiencing. ACT-informed authentic relating exercises to go deeper into our personality structures, face shame and bond in our common humanity. A spectrum of selves exercise to integrate your parts and foster a transcendent self.

Day 4: Increasing willingness and noticing the barriers of mind. Let different parts of you speak. Breathwork. Second Ceremony – an opportunity to go deeper.

Day 5: Further integration – Is any of your inner or outer behaviour changing? What new paths do you feel invited to follow? Is a new view emerging of the kind of life you want to live? Balancing the head with the heart: Awareness practices coupled with behaviour change.

Each day will include experiential practices to help us get into our direct experiencing. Through sharing circles we will learn from each other.

Integration therapy: Then each participant is then offered four 60-90min integration sessions via zoom. These sessions further support the unfolding of awareness that opened during the retreat and help translate this awareness into multiple domains of your life. It may also be a critical learning period to take advantage of. Our current integration model brings together evolutionary science, ACT and ‘parts work’ in psychedelic context as described in Henry’s Spectrum of Selves publication, integrating behaviour change to find a new balance between self-care, relationships, community and environment.

In preparation you may consider your personal challenges in terms of ‘willingness’ (how open are you to certain discomforts?), ‘experiential avoidance’ (what are the obvious or subtle ways you avoid those inner discomforts?), your motivations (what impulses behind your inner and outer behaviours are keeping you from what you truly want). Simple metaphors such as the ‘reverse compass’ may guide us on our way: where is your mind telling you not to go? Preparatory work suggested a from a month before the retreat.

To integrate your psilocybin experience into a life better lived, you may also consider if your old thought patterns take you where you really want to go. What new behaviours do our insights invite? How might our old patterns get in the way of what we really want?

As well as offering these latter perspectives, the ACT model also invites its own integration with other models and traditions, into a behaviourally aware eclecticism. Some of these modalities of integration include breathwork, art therapy, shame work and Internal Family Systems therapy.

Minimum facilitator ratio: one to every 3.5 participants minimum. Each participant will also receive one-on-one pre, between and post-ceremony check-ins.

Spaces are highly limited to a maximum of 14.