Psychedelic-assisted Psychotherapy
Why Now?
The psychedelic therapy wave is gaining momentum. We're convinced it will be the biggest step forward in the treatment of mental health conditions in this generation:
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The science is advancing exponentially every year.
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Multiple centers of excellence are dedicating themselves to expanding clinician skills
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The number of clinics offering psychedelic molecules is growing every month
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Public education and acceptance have never been greater
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Legal barriers continue to be thoughtful addressed
Not long from now, providers working in cross-disciplinary teams will be prescribing these molecule-assisted therapies for the most common indications including PTSD, Substance Use Disorders, Mood Disorders and Eating Disorders to name a few. As such, there will be a dire need for trained therapists. Our mission is to prepare advanced learners to deliver these healing modalities, competently, humbly and ethically.
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Why this course?
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We believe EpiphanyClinics course has an advantage over others. It won't just teach you about Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, it will make you a better clinician, whose patients have better outcomes. Isn't that really the bottom line?
The best way to improve outcomes post-treatment, is by knowing your patient and their condition, pre-treatment. Most courses will teach you to determine where the patient lies between inclusion and exclusion criteria. That is not enough.
Most research studies are undertaken with people who have one diagnosis. In the real world, most people have more than one diagnosis. In this case our interventions have to address the entire span of the patient's mental condition in order to have a durable effect. The only way to do that is with a full trans-diagnostic assessment. We'll teach you that.
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Then you need to understand the psychedelic and psychotherapeutic tools that are out there, how they work, and how to use them. We'll teach you that.
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Finally you need to know the nuts and bolts of safely and legally executing a psychedelic experience. We'll teach you that.
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Take this 12-week course and we will prepare you to be an excellent clinician who knows how to integrate psychedelic molecules with therapeutic words to get the best outcomes for your clients.
Our Educational Philosophy
EpiphanyClinics is proud to host this educational opportunity. It is a clerkship for physicians, therapist, students and clinicians in associated fields. The goal is to help already experienced therapists to add psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to their therapeutic tool-box.
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Our pedogogic philosophy is simple: If you know your patient on the way in, you will prevent crisis and adverse events on the way out..
This 12 week course includes a review of all the primary mental conditions. We believe this is critical. Only by having a full diagnostic overview can clinicians plan a therapeutic intervention using psychedelic molecules.
Finally, the correct outcomes require that we use the correct metrics to assess the patient's progress as they walk along the path from illness to wellness.
What do our Trainees say?
I am super happy and satisfied having taken the comprehensive 12-week Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy (PAP) course. I learned about the different psychedelics and how to appropriately and safely use them in psychotherapy. I also learned a lot about assessment for suitability of PAP. It was reinforced that risk assessment is vital. As a counsellor, I was already aware of this but Dr. Ocana brings this to another level. Additionally, the format of the course was helpful. He brings a conversational style to teaching about complex content and there was a good use of experiential activities and case studies that supported our learning. I highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to use psychedelics in their therapy practice.
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Chasidy Karpiuk, Registered Clinical Counsellor
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Course Features
This live virtual program, spans 12 weeks, W 1-12 and includes a certificate of completion. There are 4 hours of live instruction per week. The curriculum consists of 48 modules, M1-M48, each of which includes an evidence-based quiz that students complete in groups, equivalent to one continuing education unit per module. We have not yet applied for approval for the credits, but intend to do so after the third iteration of the course.
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Over 100 hours of live on-line training by experts in mental health, addiction, neurobiology, psychotherapy, art and dance integration
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On-line syllabus with clippings or recent studies and embedded recent teaching videos from around the world
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Trainee specific support groups
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Off-line video of training sessions
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Training using video and live-virtual volunteer patients
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Office shadowing with experts in their fields
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Ongoing individual mentoring and professional development
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Course integration with clinician self care mentors
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International guest lecturers
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Educational Objectives
Attitudes
Appreciate the value of creating cross-disciplinary teams of clinicians who can provide safe, effective and ethical psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy
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Appreciate the similarities and differences of the major psychotherapeutic modalities, including Cognitive Behavioral, Dialectic, Psychodynamic, Internal Family Systems, EMDR
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Appreciate the fundamentals of the Traditional, Medical and Financial systems that impact access to care
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Appreciate ethno-cultural differences and how we humble ourselves to the client's need to have their care adjusted accordingly.
Skills
Screen for signs and symptoms of all major mental conditions.
Execute psychedelic facilitation and be able to employ medical and psychological risk-mitigation strategies to prevent and manage adverse events.
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Practice advanced psychedelic-assisted integration using Art, Movement and Music
Optimize client outcomes using behavior modification techniques
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Monitor relevant mental health metrics and treatment outcomes remotely, using our proprietary mobile app, Epiphany360.
Knowledge
Understand the fundamentals of Informed Consent and Privacy Regulations that govern Personal Health Information
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Understand the Fundamental of Clinical Psychometrics
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Review the historic, cultural changes and research advances that have lead to the current psychedelic revolution
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Understanding how abnormalities in brain circuit function manifest as mental illness and how those can be restored to health using psychedelic molecules
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Understand the legal, chemical, psycho-neurobiological and therapeutic forces in play for all of the major psychedelic molecules, including Ketamine, Psilocybin, MDMA and Ayahuasca.
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Know the diagnostic criteria for the full range of mental conditions
Research and Tech
Understand the fundamentals of statistics and data science as they pertain to psychedelic therapy.
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Understand how wearables and devices can be used to optimize remote patient management.
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Understand how data can be transformed by machine learning into therapeutic algorithms executed by intelligent virtual assistants that can augment clinical skills
Experiential Weekends
EpiphanyClinics is an international organization, allowing trainees to participate in both Canada and the US. (Vancouver and San Diego). After the final weekend of virtual instruction, there will be an optional 3 day learning experience (for an additional fee). On those weekends, trainees may participate in or observe a confidential, legal, medically-supervised psychedelic experience and the associated integration sessions in a natural setting.
Faculty
Antonio Ocana MSc MD
Medical and Neuroscience
Antonio is a Canadian physician who practices in both Vancouver and Los Angeles. He brings 25 years of experience in medical psychotherapy, psychopharmacology and neuroscience. He is also a specialist in psychometrics and data science. He has a special interest in AI as way to augment clinical skills.
Barbara Heiman LMFT
Psychotherapy and Art Therapy
Barbara is a licensed psychotherapist in Los Angeles. She brings over 30 years of experience to her work at EpiphanyClinics. She is the backbone the psychotherapy content of the course..
Tarun Gulati
Contemplation and Self-Care
Tarun is a master coach in India. He has a unique approach to the challenges of the mind. His course will dazzle you with its simplicity and efficacy, it is actually for the therapists as well as the clients..
Astrid Sherman MSc
Dance Therapy
Astrid is a retired professional ballet dancer-teacher from South Africa. She is also a dance science researcher and mentor. She knows a few things psychological integration using dance. which will help you get the most of your psychedelic experience.
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The fine print
We understand, of course. This a big commitment.
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If you want to see the course content, you can sign up and review the previous iteration of the course, no charge.
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Once you are in the course, you can see all the content, the quizzes and the videos.
The live virtual classes are every week, usually we have one week off between week 6 and 7.
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Schedule
Wed - 9-10 am
Thursday 9-10 am
Friday 9-11 am
Dr. Ocana MD teaches the first 2 classes every week; Barbara Heiman, psychotherapist, teaches Friday 9-10 am and we usually have a volunteer patient or guest lecturer on Friday 10-11 am.
Everyone has access to the class group chat. You can do your quizzes by yourself or with a partner.
If you miss a class, you can watch the video of the class from the previous iteration of the course.
There are 3 quizzes per week x 12 weeks. Each quiz has 5-6 questions. The answers to the question are in the body of the text of that module, on the website. It's challenging, but pretty straightforward
You can miss up to 6 classes out of 48. You have to complete all the quizzes to get credit for the course.
As mentioned above, on some of the Fridays, the guest is an actual patient who has volunteered to be assessed in class. That’s why you have to sign a confidentiality agreement.
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If you are interested you can shadow Dr. Ocana while he sees some patients, so you can see how it's done.
There is an optional weekend at the end of the course. We will undertake a real Ketamine group session (There is a separate fee for the weekend, $700). If you want to attend, but not participate in the psychedelic experience, we will have a volunteer patient who you can observe taking the medicine.
Completion of this course will prepare you to work, at any clinic or hospital. This course has all the content of the MAPS course, with lots of added goodies.
If you are not completely satisfied after the first week, you will get a complete refund, no questions asked.
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