Psychedelic Therapy

The foundations for psychedelic-assisted therapy are built upon transpersonal psychology, which studies the entire spectrum of human experience, including non-ordinary states of consciousness. Throughout history, the cultivation of non-ordinary states of consciousness was central to spiritual and healing practices across numerous cultures around the world. However, within the West, these practices have long been repressed. Despite legal and cultural barriers, a resurgence of interest in the healing potential of psychedelic substances is occurring, and access to these substances through legal channels is growing. Psychedelic-assisted therapy is showing promise for treating conditions like PTSD, depression, suicidality, addictions, and end-of-life anxiety.

Psycholytic and Psychedelic Therapy

Within the field of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, two paradigms have been described: psychedelic therapy and psycholytic therapy. Both approaches use psychoactive substances as adjuncts to psychotherapy, yet they diverge in dosage, therapeutic technique, and theoretical orientation.

Dosage and Pharmacological Strategy

Psychedelic therapy employs high doses of psychedelics (e.g., LSD, psilocybin), sufficient to reliably induce profound alterations of consciousness, including ego dissolution, mystical-type experiences, and perceptual intensification.
Psycholytic therapy utilizes low to moderate doses, aiming for psychodynamic loosening while maintaining ego-functioning and a most narrative coherence. The goal is not ego-dissolution but facilitation of insight, affective processing, and new relational experiences.

Therapeutic Orientation

Psychedelic therapy often emphasizes experiential confrontation and transcendence. The therapist adopts a largely supportive, non-directive role, allowing the psychedelic experience to unfold.
Psycholytic therapy is rooted in psychoanalytic and psychodynamic traditions (notably in mid-20th-century Europe). Here, the therapist actively engages in interpretation, transference and relational work, and emotional processing during sessions.

Treatment Structure

Psychedelic therapy typically involves a small number of high-dose sessions (e.g., one to three) embedded within a structured process of preparation and integration.
Psycholytic therapy involves multiple lower-dose sessions over an extended course, resembling the rhythm of ongoing psychotherapy with psychedelic facilitation as a recurrent catalyst.

Clinical Aims

Psychedelic therapy is oriented toward catalyzing transformative, peak, or mystical experiences that may radically shift patients’ worldviews, values, or sense of self (e.g., in existential distress, addictions, or end-of-life anxiety).
Psycholytic therapy is oriented toward gradual working-through of unconscious emotional material, reactivation of early developmental conflicts, reconstruction of the self-narrative over a longer term process of t.

Attention to Set and Setting & Integration of Pharmacology and Psychotherapy

Each approach emphasizes the importance of psychological preparation, safe environments, and supportive therapeutic presence to maximize therapeutic benefit and minimize risks.
Both models recognize that the therapeutic efficacy of psychedelics depends not merely on pharmacological effects but on the integration of these states within a therapeutic relationship and broader psychotherapeutic frame.

Catalytic Use of Altered States, Transpersonal, and Psychodynamic Potentials

Both therapies view altered states of consciousness as catalysts for psychological change—whether by inducing transcendence (psychedelic therapy) or by lowering defenses to unconscious material (psycholytic therapy).
Although they differ in emphasis, both approaches acknowledge the possibility of transpersonal experiences, symbolic insights, and deep affective release as mediators of therapeutic change.

I have pursued specialized training in MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelics Studies), Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy (TheraPsil), and Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (Polaris Insight Center). I currently practice psychedelic and psycholytic therapies with applicable clients. If you are interested in learning more about this practice, please see https://www.reunionpsychedelictherapy.com/