Success in the Field: Client Access to Psilocybin Therapy
One of the most rewarding aspects of my job as HAF’s Executive Director is meeting the incredible people working on the front lines of bringing psychedelic healing to so many people deeply in need. Last week I had the pleasure of traveling to Albany, Oregon, to take a tour of and meet the lead facilitators at Inner Guidance, one of Oregon’s first licensed and operating psilocybin service centers.
Facilitators Dee Lafferty, center, and Pat Winczewski, right, stand alongside office administrator Olivia Drenning at Inner Guidance Services Inc. in North Albany, which features a team of four facilitators and several support staff. Jess Hume-Pantuso, Mid-Valley Media
Despite the many challenges presented with getting a service center up and running, Dee Lafferty and her team at Inner Guidance are doing incredible work with clients from a range of backgrounds.
From terminally ill cancer patients looking to ease anxiety and suffering in the final stage of their lives to people who have struggled with childhood trauma for decades, there is no shortage of clients seeking out psilocybin services to ease their suffering.
Pat Winczewski, a recent graduate from the Synaptic Training Program and now a lead licensed facilitator at Inner Guidance, has conducted around 30 sessions since the service center opened its doors in June. This could be the most sessions that any single licensed facilitator has conducted since the Oregon Psilocybin Services program began.
As Pat toured us through his work space, he talked to us about how Albany is in a unique position as a rural town with a large veteran population. He even mentioned that Albany hosts one of the country's biggest Veterans Day parades West of the Mississippi.
The team at Inner Guidance is also interested in working with local LGBTQIA+ populations. In order to better support this community, Inner Guidance has established a financial assistance program to help create pathways of access in Oregon’s program for those who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, disabled, and with low socioeconomic status.
You can learn more about Inner Guidance on their website here, and be sure to check out some local press they received here.
Finally, I want to lift up recent articles from the Denver Post which highlight the importance of this work that has been spearheaded by our incredible team in Colorado, along with so many dedicated allies. I know I speak for more than just myself when I say I’m proud at how far we’ve come as a community.
These Coloradans sought out psilocybin-assisted therapy before it was legal. Here’s why.
Denver Post
In the fall of 2021, John Bigley was sitting on the floor of an apartment in downtown Denver. He held a cup of psilocybin mushroom tea, trying to calm his nerves.
For more than 30 years, he’d kept the sexual abuse he experienced as a child a secret, buried in the back of his mind where the abusers couldn’t hurt him. That’s also where he relegated the grief about his father, who died when Bigley was just 13.
> Read the full article
How does psilocybin-assisted therapy work in Colorado and Oregon?
Denver Post
Before Dee Lafferty decided to add psychedelic-assisted therapy to her repertoire, she wanted to try it for herself.
A licensed clinical social worker of more than a decade, Lafferty had heard about the promise of substances such as ketamine and psilocybin to improve mental health. In June, Lafferty sat with a facilitator in a psilocybin service center she owns and operates in Albany, Oregon, called Inner Guidance Services. And she took a journey.
> Read the full article
Thank you for all you do to help us make progress in this important work.
COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT
Fellowship Recipient: Naoko Bishop
Naoko worked over 5 years at a Holistic Retreat Center called Hotaka Yojoen in Nagano, Japan. She organized workshops for yoga, meditation, herbal and forest therapy, transpersonal psychology (including Holotropic breathwork), sweat lodge and an Integrative Medicine workshop with Andrew Weil. She has been interested in therapy with psychedelics, but never had a chance to do so in Japan. Naoko believes that psilocybin can help transform and heal us.
“Once I have gained experience as a psilocybin facilitator, I would like to work in a hospice or end-of-life care setting. Psilocybin is not a magic pill, it cannot cure everything, but how wonderful it would be to end up where we can feel at peace and safely share insights and wisdom gained through guided psilocybin sessions. When times are at their most challenging, it is that kind of healthy and supportive community that I am passionate about working with.”
Naoko recently started her facilitator training with Synaptic Training Institute.
UPDATES
Up to Date Numbers on Oregon Psilocybin Services Program Licensing
The following information has been compiled through the OHA’s Psilocybin Services website.
These numbers are updated on a weekly basis and are subject to change. Last updated 8/28/23.
Colorado's Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) is Hiring a Natural Medicine Policy Analyst
The Division of Professions and Occupations (DPO) provides consumer protection through its regulation of more than 500,000 licensees within more than 50 professions, occupations, and businesses in the State of Colorado.
See the full posting here.
EVENTS
Registration Open for Horizons New York and Horizons Northwest
Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics
New York City: October 12-15
Portland, Oregon: December 1-3
Featuring talks on Psychedelics in Science and Medicine, Psychedelics in America and in the World. Speakers to be announced throughout August and September.
> Horizons New York Information and Registration
> Horizons Northwest Information and Registration
IN THE NEWS
Oregon Now Offers Psilocybin Therapy. Here's what One of the First Patients Experienced.
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Oregon’s new psilocybin therapy program went live in January, but it’s taken months to train new facilitators. So people are only now beginning to take hallucinogenic mushrooms under the system.
One of the first was James Carroccio, a retired small business owner. He doesn’t actually live in Oregon. He traveled here from Arizona in his RV. But he used to live in Bend and has kept a close eye on Oregon’s new system in the hope of getting help.
OPINION: To Combat the Opioid Crisis, We Need to Explore All of Our Options, Including Psychedelic Therapies
Montrose Press
All across our state, people are suffering from substance use disorder, and the drugs that are out there are becoming more and more deadly. Too many of our friends, family members, and neighbors are slipping through the cracks, and we see it every day in our communities. In rural Colorado in particular, access to mental health and substance use care is sparse, and a disproportionate number of people living in rural and mountain communities struggle with substance use issues and can’t find any resources to heal.
Liability Insurance for Psychedelics: 5 Questions for Insurance Expert Leslie Nylund
The Microdose
Leslie Nylund has been in the insurance business for over three decades, working in senior leadership roles in two of the nation’s largest public insurance brokers, Willis and AHT. In 2019, Nylund started working with a new client: the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, perhaps the best-known psychedelics advocacy and research organization. Nylund and her team managed all of MAPS’s insurance, from individual health insurance and property insurance to liability insurance for MAPS’s clinical trials investigating the use of MDMA to treat PTSD. As Nylund learned about the psychedelics field, she saw an opportunity. “I knew there was going to be a huge gap in the marketplace, and that there was going to be a need for medical malpractice insurance,” she said.
Single-Dose Psilocybin Treatment for Major Depressive Disorder
JAMA Research
In a randomized, placebo-controlled, 6-week trial in 104 adults, a 25-mg dose of psilocybin administered with psychological support was associated with a rapid and sustained antidepressant effect, measured as change in depressive symptom scores, compared with active placebo. No serious treatment-emergent adverse events occurred.