How to Choose Your Psychedelic Guide for Healing: Understanding the Role of Facilitators, Shamans, Tripsitters, and Psychedelic Therapists
- Colette Condorcita Schmitt
- Jul 16
- 8 min read
Updated: Jul 21
The psychedelic industry is evolving quickly. What was once confined to underground circles and sacred ceremonies is now entering the mainstream through clinical trials, legal retreat centers, an expanding underground, and state-licensed therapy programs. More people than ever are seeking healing through substances like psilocybin, MDMA, and ayahuasca.
However, as access expands, so does the complexity. Words like facilitator, shaman, and therapist are often used interchangeably, sometimes inaccurately. This lack of clarity can lead to confusion, misplaced trust, or even harm. It’s also crucial to know how to vet and choose the right supportive care for yourself.
While psychedelics are powerful tools for healing and insight, they are not inherently safe due to the powerful experiences they elicit. The presence, training, and integrity of the person guiding your journey, whether in a ceremonial, clinical, or informal setting, can shape the entire experience and its aftermath.
Choosing a guide isn’t just about vibe or intuition. It’s a decision that impacts your physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being. It’s about safety, ethics, and effectiveness.
Whether you’re stepping into a clinical trial, attending a sacred ceremony, or traveling to a retreat in the woods, it’s critical to understand who you’re working with, what frameworks they operate in, and how (or if) they’re accountable.
Key Takeaways:
Not all psychedelic guides are the same. Many of the terms used to describe psychedelic support providers are used interchangeably, even though they have distinct meanings and implications. This can create confusion and lead to unsafe or misaligned experiences.
Vetting your psychedelic support is essential. Asking the right questions about training, ethics, and experience can protect your physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
Safety and integration depend on the container. The person guiding your psychedelic journey will shape not just the experience itself, but how it is framed, processed, and integrated over time.
Knowing the Difference Between Psychedelic Facilitators, Shamans, and Therapists
What are the Roles of the Facilitator?
Psychedelic Facilitators are individuals who organize and hold space for psychedelic experiences. This term is often used in underground or decriminalized settings where no formal licensure is required. Many facilitators are self-trained, peer-trained, or mentored through informal apprenticeship or lineage-based systems, both Indigenous and not.
Some come from coaching, spiritual mentorship, somatic therapy, or harm reduction backgrounds. Some may even be licensed therapists who are using psychedelics therapeutically, but without a regulated psychedelic license. While many are deeply committed and skilled, there is no regulatory oversight, so competence varies widely.
The important thing to note here is that seeking out a facilitator comes with certain key risks, namely a lack of formal (if any at times) training, poor boundaries, or inadequate crisis support or follow-up. Your best bet at avoiding those risks is by doing your due diligence to ask the right questions and vet them thoroughly.
Key Questions:
What kind of training or apprenticeship have you completed?
How long have you been facilitating, and in what contexts?
What is your approach to safety, preparation, and integration?
How do you support people through difficult or intense experiences, including if they extend long after the experience?
Are you part of any professional networks or peer supervision groups?
How Does That Compare to the Role of the Shaman?
Shamans are traditionally Indigenous healers who operate within specific cultural and cosmological frameworks. Their work is rooted in ritual, spirit communication, plant medicine, and symbolic understanding of illness and healing. However, due to colonialism and globalization, the term “shaman” is often misused or oversimplified in modern Western contexts.
Some practitioners today may carry extensive training, but may not be Indigenous. They may have undergone long-term apprenticeships, worked with visionary plants, or experienced initiatory phenomena that led them to this path. While not traditional shamans, they often operate in ceremonial settings and describe their work in energetic or mystical terms, aligned with shamanic perspectives and approaches.
Key Questions:
What specifically is their training or lineage?
If trained in an Indigenous tradition, do they have permission to serve psychoactive compounds, and from whom?
Do they work with a co-facilitator during the psychedelic session for accountability? If not, would they be open to one?
Are they accountable to a community or tradition?
How do they handle power, projection, and cultural responsibility?
What frameworks or skill sets do they use to support clients in preparation and integration?
The Psychedelic Therapist
Psychedelic Therapists are licensed mental health professionals (e.g., LCSWs, PhDs, MDs) who work with psychedelics legally, in the psychedelic underground, as well as in states like Oregon and Colorado where certain legal frameworks exist.
Additionally, with the rise of legal ketamine clinics and ketamine mail-order services, there is an increasing number of therapists supporting clients with ketamine assisted therapy (KAP). Additionally, Psychedelic Therapists may be working in clinical or research settings.
They are bound by ethical standards, licensing boards, and formal supervision as therapists. This adds a layer of accountability, training, and safety, especially for clients with trauma, mental health conditions, or medical complexities.
That said, licensure doesn’t guarantee spiritual awareness, cultural humility, good boundaries, or experience with altered states. Some therapists may be rigidly clinical or underprepared for the non-ordinary nature of psychedelic healing.
Interestingly, the current legal licensure programs in Oregon and Colorado do not require personal experience with psychedelics before receiving a license.
This means that you could work with a psychedelic therapist who has never done psychedelics themselves before. This is a red flag for many, for obvious reasons.
While many shamanic approaches to entheogens focus primarily on the ceremonial or real-time experience itself, they often do not include formal preparation or structured integration practices, especially in the way these are emphasized in Western therapeutic or harm-reduction frameworks.
Comparing shamanic approaches with modern approaches is complex, because these unique cultural approaches have systemic differences, with their own worldviews and values.
Although integration may occur organically through connection with the land, community, and ongoing relationship with the tradition in shamanic approaches to entheogens, it’s not always explicit or guided.
In contrast, many Western facilitators, especially those trained in trauma-informed and psychospiritual models, now place a strong emphasis on preparation and integration as essential components of the healing process.
While some may consider psychedelic journey facilitation to be “not economical” for medical and mental health doctors (Atma, 2023), the experienced support during the actual ceremony is not only a valuable harm reduction practice but also helps direct the experience toward therapeutic outcomes during the state of heightened neuroplasticity, and is very much worth the time and effort, especially for those with neurodivergence.
Key Questions:
What is your clinical license and background?
Have you personally worked with psychedelics? If so, which ones and how many times? If not, how do you understand the experience?
How do you balance psychological frameworks with spiritual or mystical dimensions?
What additional training have you done specific to psychedelics, trauma, or altered states?
Are you operating within a legal framework (e.g., Oregon/Colorado licensure or research trial)?
What About Psychedelic Guides and Tripsitters?
The term psychedelic guide is used interchangeably with facilitator, but maybe carries a more casual undertone, similar to “coach.” Tripsitters, on the other hand, don’t usually possess any real qualifications, beyond their willingness to be there during someone’s psychedelic experience.
A trip sitter usually (but not always) has experience with psychedelics and decides to be the sober party during a friend’s trip, as a helpful gesture for the tripper, who is often less experienced or just simply wasn’t comfortable tripping on their own.
How to Vet a Psychedelic Guide or Facilitator
Choosing a guide is not about finding the most charismatic or the cheapest option. It’s about finding someone who is skilled, grounded, and ethically aligned. Here’s what to look for:
Training & Credentials
Ask about their background: Were they trained formally, or through apprenticeship?
Do they have education in trauma-informed care, crisis response, or harm reduction?
Do they have personal experience with psychedelics? How long have they been exploring these substances both personally and professionally?
Ethical Framework
Do they have clear boundaries, consent practices, and confidentiality protocols?
Can they articulate how they avoid power imbalances, coercion, or guru dynamics?
Methodology & Philosophy
Do they frame the experience purely through mystical language, or do they offer psychological integration tools?
Are they open to multiple worldviews, including Western, Indigenous, somatic, or spiritual?
What is unique about their practice or approach? How do they approach day-of facilitation, and do they provide additional support around preparation and integration?
Supervision & Accountability
Are they part of a professional network, peer supervision group, or training organization?
Do they welcome feedback? What happens if something goes wrong?
The Reality of Underground Work in the Psychedelic Industry
Most facilitators and shamans operate in legally gray or underground spaces, which means there’s no formal protection if something goes wrong. While many do incredible work, the lack of oversight creates room for harm, especially when vulnerable people are involved. To explore red flags to look out for in more depth, you can check out the Fireside Project’s list, which raises some valuable points.
This can be a common issue, because many people seeking out supported psychedelic use are vulnerable and in need of therapeutic support. That’s why vetting is critical. Look past the glow of a beautiful Instagram feed or a smooth-talking “healer”. Ask the hard questions. Pay attention to how they respond to you and how you feel in their presence.
Recommended Reading:
Red Flags to Watch Out For
They call themselves a “psychedelic therapist” without a license.
They say “the medicine will heal everything” without nuance and without offering preparation or integration.
They discourage questions or create an environment of mystical pressure or blind trust.
They have no clear protocol for crisis support, harm reduction, health screening, or boundary setting before, during, or after.
What Makes a Great Guide?
The most trustworthy guides or facilitators share certain qualities:
They understand both the psychological and spiritual dimensions of the work.
They are trauma-informed, consent-driven, and grounded.
They don’t make promises. They hold space for your unfolding.
They engage in ongoing supervision, self-reflection, and education.
They have demonstrated a continuous desire to improve their training and practice.
They aren’t trying to be your savior. They’re walking beside you, not above you.
Additional Questions to Ask Before Saying Yes
What is your training or lineage?
Do you have a license or other accountability structure?
How do you handle emergencies or intense psychological responses?
What is your preparation and integration process, as well as approach, if extra support is needed?
What’s your approach to balancing mystical insight with scientific understanding?
Final Thoughts: Choose with Care
Psychedelics are powerful tools that open the unconscious—and your guide’s unconscious, too. The container you choose can shape everything: your healing, your trauma response, your sense of trust in yourself and the world.
Don’t rush the decision. Take your time. Ask questions. Listen to your gut. The right guide will welcome your discernment, not be threatened by it.
Resources to Explore
Resources: F.I.V.E Training, Being True To You, Fireside Project
Books: Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by Mircea Eliade, The World of Shamanism by Michael Harner
Integration Networks: Psychedelic.support, MAPS Integration List
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