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Our Training Programs

Our training programs serve a growing need for the training of skilled therapists and mental health professionals who seek to attain advanced skills in the field for future Health Canada-approved psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy practice. We use the term “psychedelic” to refer to the classic and newer psychedelics (Psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, Iboga, Ayahuasca, Ketamine etc.). Participants are health professionals in licensed mental health and medical professions who are seeking to integrate psychedelic medicine and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy into their clinical practices.

The training program itself is rooted in contemporary medical and mental health research, and also provides the historical foundation from which psychedelic medicines developed. Varied approaches to psychedelic-assisted therapy are presented, including trans-personal psychology, consciousness studies and psychoanalysis, while maintaining a focus on contemporary research and therapy innovation

View our course programs

Introduction to Psychedelic-assisted Therapy

Targeted towards healthcare professionals who want a detailed understanding of psychedelic-assisted therapy and the opportunity to interact with instructors through live Q&A.

15 lessons

CE Credits

Includes

  • Full sessions
  • Lesson resources
  • 4 hours of interactive Q&A with instructors
  • Access to ATMA's network
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Introduction

Our PAA co-sponsored Introduction to Psychedelic-assisted Therapy Program begins with re-defining the psychiatric model from one of “chemical imbalance” to one rooted in the mind-body-spirit dynamic that psychedelic therapeutic treatment can bring to the client.

It will include didactic material providing a basic understanding of the various psychedelic and entheogenic medicines currently in use, including Psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, Iboga, Ayahuasca, Ketamine, and other lesser known psychedelics.

Benefits

Expand your practice

Gain the
right tools

Support your patients

Grow your network

Lesson Plan

Instructed by David Harder, Natalie Harder, and Tarzie McLean
Instructed by Saundra Jain
Instructed by Mark Haden
Instructed by David Harder
Instructed by Mike Mathers
Instructed by Anthony Bossis
Instructed by Devon Christie
Instructed by Bruce Sanguin
Instructed by Megan McElheran
Instructed by Erika Dyck
Instructed by Mark Haden
Instructed by Trevor Millar
Instructed by Mike Mathers
Instructed by Anthony Bossis
Instructed by Ian Mitchell

Live Q&A

  • History of Psychedelics
  • Ethics in Psychedelic Therapy
  • Wellness Enhancement
  • Palliative Care
  • Iboga in Addictions and Other Therapy
  • Mushrooms/Psilocybin
  • MDMA
  • Ketamine: Insights from the Emergency Department
  • Manual of Psychedelic Guides
  • A Relational Model of Psychedelic Integration
  • Self-Care for the Psychedelic Guide

Student Testimonial

ATMA's Introduction to Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy was truly an invaluable course. There was so much helpful information. Thank you so much for opening this training up to various helping professionals.

ATMA Academy Alumni

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FAQ

This training is designed to help practicing counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists and medial professionals gain a basic understanding of psychedelic therapy. This work can support other modalities that you may already facilitate with clients (such as IFS, somatic therapy, EMDR, breathwork, etc). It is not intended to replace what you feel already works, but to provide you with additional, science-based tools to enhance your current practice.
We are developing a course specifically for non-registered Healthcare Workers and will be working with Health Canada to educate and equip Health Care Professionals. Subscribe to our therapist training email list for continued updates.

Coming out of this course, you will have a basic understanding of:

  • The various psychedelic medicines in use today;
  • How to best set up a session with a client in psychedelic therapy;
  • Some of the legal and ethical issues that need to be considered when using psychedelic psychotherapy;
  • A sense of how and for which applications these medicines work; and
  • A clear path on what is required in order for you to introduce this work to your practice when these medicines become legalized.
With the current restrictions in place with the COVID 19 Pandemic Situation, there are NO in person events. We follow all government guidelines based in Alberta, and will update this as restrictions change.
Yes! All sessions are recorded and are available after the evening is complete. If you must miss a class, you can catch up when it works best for you. You can also go back to review material that you found interesting and want to rediscover. Videos are saved under the main header of each training session.
We do not offer refunds once you have paid however, we will work with you to change to a different cohort if situations prevent you from attending the course you paid for.

Join today!

ATMA Academy is already offering its comprehensive introductory course in Psychedelic-assisted Therapy, a prerequisite for the remainder of our program. Don’t miss your chance to get started early – Enroll Now!
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Psilocybin-assisted Therapy Training Program

We believe it is critical and beneficial, from both the client and health care provider perspective, for therapists to gain direct knowledge and an experiential understanding of the effects of psilocybin as psychedelic medicine in order to increase efficacy in the provision of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies. Our program will provide legal psilocybin experiential and guidance training under a clinical trial umbrella as approved by Health Canada.

*The Introduction to Psychedelic-assisted Therapy is a required course.

prerequisite

100 hours of training

40 hours trial participation

Includes

  • Workshops
  • Online learning
  • Coaching
  • Psilocybin based clinical research participation
  • Access to ATMA’s manual to psilocybin-assisted therapy
  • Access to ATMA's network
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Introduction

This training program will prepare licensed healthcare
professionals to provide psilocybin-assisted therapy to
their clients. Participants will also be offered the
opportunity to enroll in a Phase II Clinical Trial, as and
when approved by Health Canada. The primary
objective of this trial is to document the efficacy
profile of psilocybin in treating general anxiety of
mental healthcare professionals resulting from COVID19. A secondary exploratory objective is to have
participants complete self-assessments on the
psychological outcome of psilocybin. Details on the
trial will be made available when appropriate.

Enrollment begins August 2022

Benefits

Participate in
clinical trials

Hands-on experience

Competitive
advantage

Grow your network

Lesson Plan

Studying the past to inform the future.
Navigating the safe and effective delivery of treatments.
Mixing conventional and novel therapies in the psychedelic process.
Preparing the client to enter the journey space with maximum readiness for effective treatment.
Helping the client make sense of the process.
How do we ensure these medicines reach those in need?
Understanding the neurobiological correlates of psilocybin-assisted therapy.
Exploring what makes the optimum guide/sitter for the therapeutic setting of psychedelics.
Creating the optimum environment for effective treatment.
Understanding which medicine is the best for each application.

Psilocybin Clinical Trials

Through Health Canada-approved clinical trials, ATMA will work to demonstrate the effectiveness of psilocybin in treating
a variety of mental health indications. From basic safety to efficacy trials, ATMA will answer critical questions
surrounding the use of psilocybin in a clinical setting.

As the COVID-19 pandemic wanes, ATMA’s first priority will be trials focusing on front-line workers who have been
dealing with work-related stress associated with the psychological fallout of the last two years; it will include physicians,
counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Participation in these trials will also provide these mental healthcare
providers the unique opportunity to experience the effects of psilocybin treatment in a safe clinical setting. This first-hand
experience will be useful to therapists for when psilocybin is eventually legalized for psychotherapy.

Get notified about the latest updates

If you are open to being part of this small study and feel that you have a passion for the future of this medicine, we would invite you to subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date with the latest news about our Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy Program.

FAQ

This is not a mandatory component of the training, but we believe that one of the most important elements of working with psychedelic-assisted therapy is to have first-hand experience with the medicine. We are working closely with Health Canada to find the right way to safely provide this as an option to each student enrolled in the course. This experiential understanding is, we believe, essential to being a qualified therapist to provide psychedelic therapy, to more empathetically understand what the client is experiencing.
We are currently working with Health Canada to find a pathway forward to be able to offer an experiential aspect to the training. We are hopeful that this will be resolved very soon through the Clinical Trial Application currently in the approval process, and will be updating this site and making announcements when we are able to confirm this piece.
As you are likely aware, we are in a state of significant change in Canada with regard to psychedelics. Health Canada is opening the door slowly to patients to access these medicines, but we believe it will be a matter of at least some months if not a year or two before these medicines are fully accessible for therapists to offer their clients. At ATMA, we are preparing for these medicines to become legal for therapy, and believe that those who are qualified therapists, together with an understanding of the medicines, will be at the forefront of the leading edge therapy protocols in the future. Psychedelic medicine will have a significant impact on treatment and therapy options for mental health, PTSD, and addictions. Now is the time to fully educate oneself as a therapist to be ready for the wave of need for therapists that is coming.
We do not offer refunds once you have paid however, we will work with you to change to a different cohort if situations prevent you from attending the course you paid for.

The ATMA Network

Available with Premium. Recognizing the limited time and resources at your disposal, we provide a turn-key solution to help you incorporate Psychedelic-assisted Therapy in your practice effortlessly. Health professionals who achieve competency in offering this therapeutic intervention will be able to adopt the treatment without any disruptions to current services they provide.

The TNS will allow Psychologists, accredited and certified Counselors and other mental health professionals across Canada to seamlessly integrate Psychedelic-assisted Therapy into clinics and independent practices with the confidence that it is done at a high-level of professionalism and integrity.

Clinical Trials

First-hand experience and therapist participation in an experiential Practicum Pilot Program

Connect

Collaboration, networking and knowledge sharing amongst peers

Events

Be the first to know about upcoming events near you or online

Updates

Free updates on the platform

Lessons

Didactic training, experiential practicums and viable adoption of Psychedelic-assisted Therapy

Referrals

An intuitive platform that serves both those seeking treatment and Therapy Practitioners wishing to expand

On our very own platform

Our Therapist Network and Services will be accessible on a user-friendly, robust digital platform, which will serve as a central hub for all services required to integrate Psychedelic-assisted Therapy into your practice. The platform will allow for participating Therapists to exchange data, experience and discoveries, as well as facilitate group discussions to help improve the practice of Psychedelic Therapy, and allow access to resources crucial in guiding you to competently deliver the treatment.
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200, 1716 – 16 Avenue NW, Calgary, AB T2M 0L7

Jane Cooper has decades of experiences supporting people to wake up to the truth of who they are. All of Jane’s work is informed by her beliefs in the innate capacity of each person to heal and move towards wholeness. She is also a practitioner who believes in the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness especially when combined with the teachings of Internal Family Systems therapy and Stan Grof (one of the founders of Transpersonal Psychology and Holotropic Breathwork and one of the original psychonauts). Jane started her training with him in 1993 and continues to learn from him and his teachings daily.

As a professional Counsellor and Psychotherapist, a Clinical Hypnotherapist, Reiki Practitioner, and Holotropic Breathwork Facilitator, Jane brings a fresh blend of professional skills to all of her work. She is committed to being of service to humanity and does so in a clear, direct, honest, authentic, and compassionate way, while not supporting ongoing denial or deflection.

Bruce Sanguin has been a Clinical Fellow with the Canadian Association of Marriage and Family Therapists for 25 years. He currently lives in Victoria, BC where he practices as a psychotherapist. He is the author of seven books, the latest of which, Dismantled: How Love and Psychedelics Broke a Clergyman Apart and Put Him Back Together, describes his own healing journey using psychedelics in the context of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. As well as practicing psychotherapy, Bruce is a keynote speaker at psychedelic conferences, with an active interest in the integration of spirituality and psychology.
Dr. Christie is a clinical instructor with the UBC Department of Medicine and a family physician with a focused practice in Multidisciplinary Pain Management. She is a Registered Therapeutic Counsellor emphasizing Relational Somatic Therapy for trauma resolution and is trained to deliver both MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD (MAPS USA) and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, in a research setting. She is a recognized speaker and expert on the potential for incorporating psychedelic assisted therapies in an improved health care model for the future.
Dr. Anthony Bossis is a clinical psychologist and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine. He is Director of Palliative Care Research, Co-Principal Investigator, and a session guide for the NYU Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Project, a FDA-approved clinical trial investigating the efficacy of a psilocybin-generated mystical experience upon existential and psycho-spiritual distress in persons with cancer.

Mike is an addiction and trauma therapist with 15 years of experience working in residential and outpatient treatment programs with both individuals and groups. His therapeutic ethos focuses on offering the development of evidence-based skills as well as support to integrate these skills so that his clients may realize a more fulfilling life. He practices a blend of approaches including motivational interviewing, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and existential therapy. Mike believes in the transformative power of psychedelic medicines to connect people with their inner healing intelligence and the embodied wisdom accessible to all. He recognizes the importance of a safe container being created (including preparation and integration), and values how this supports the development of psychological flexibility, potentially leading to profound and lasting improvements in the person’s quality of life via behavioural change.

Mike has been working with first responders for the past 2 years facilitating PTSD healing groups. His recent efforts have been focused on the development of Resilient Living Recovery (RLR), a 10 week online addiction treatment program for people with mild to moderate substance use problems. Since 2018, Mike has presented at the Spirit Plant Medicine Conference and has been training as a study therapist for clinical research led by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) on a clinical trial that will see the MAPS MDMA protocol for trauma applied to eating disorders. He has also been approved as a research therapist on a clinical trial with Numinous that will investigate the use of psilocybin for substance use disorders via motivational enhancement therapy. Mike has attended several psychedelic integration workshops and is a consultant for PsyGen Labs focusing on the therapeutic aspects pertaining to the development of psychedelic medicine clinical trials.

Trevor Millar is a social-entrepreneur who has played a key role in advancing the psychedelic movement for nearly a decade. He has the unique perspective of having operated a business where he legally administered psychedelics to over 200 people within Canada, mostly for substance use disorder. Since May 2018 he has been on the board of directors for the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Canada, where he acted as Chair of the Board for over two years. MAPS is a non-profit organization and a leader in supporting scientific research into psychedelics. He is also currently a board member and co-founder of the Canadian Psychedelic Association.

From 2012 to 2017, Trevor was active as the founder and President of Liberty Root Therapy Inc., a business dedicated to healing and transformation by legally providing the plant medicine ibogaine to people mostly with opiate use disorder. Trevor was featured in the award-winning documentary about using magic mushrooms and Iboga to treat addiction, anxiety and depression called DOSED, which was released in 2019. He is currently the Chief Psychedelic Officer of NeonMind Biosciences Inc., a corporation dedicated to developing and commercializing products that contain legal medicinal mushrooms and those that may contain psychedelic compounds. Trevor is also on the Advisory Board of Nature Spirit Labs Inc.

Dr. Erika Dyck is a Professor at the University of Saskatchewan, and a Canada Research Chair in the History of Medicine. She is the author of Psychedelic Psychiatry: LSD from Clinic to Campus (Johns Hopkins, 2008; University of Manitoba Press, 2011), Managing Madness: The Weyburn Mental Hospital and Transformations of Psychiatric Care in Canada (2017) and the co-editor of Culture’s Catalyst: Encounters with Peyote and the Native American Church in Canada (2016) and Psychedelic Prophets: The Letters of Aldous Huxley and Humphry Osmond (2018).
Dr. Saundra Jain is an Adjunct Clinical Affiliate, School of Nursing, at The University of Texas at Austin, and a psychotherapist in private practice. Dr. Jain is a co-creator of the WILD 5 Wellness Program and co-author of a well-received workbook written for those interested in improving their mental wellness – KickStart30: A Proven 30-Day Mental Wellness Program. She is co-creator of the Psychedelics and Wellness Survey (PAWS) exploring the intersect between psychedelics and wellness. She serves as a member of the Psych Congress Steering Committee providing direction regarding educational gaps/needs for mental health practitioners, and Sana Symposium providing psychedelics education for mental health and addiction professionals.
Dr. Megan McElheran is the CEO and Chief Clinical Psychologist of Wayfound Mental Health Group. Dr. McElheran completed graduate training at the PAU-Stanford University Clinical Psychology Consortium, during which she obtained specialized training in the treatment of PTSD through the National Center for PTSD in Menlo Park, CA. Dr. McElheran has been in practice in Calgary since 2008. She continues to focus on work with first responders, and her clinical practice involves work with active-duty members of the Canadian Forces, members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, members of the Calgary Firefighter Department, medical personnel, and others who are directly or vicariously impacted by traumatic events. She routinely engages in teaching and supervisory activity to ensure the sound dissemination of empirically-grounded interventions for trauma. Dr. McElheran is regularly engaged in speaking events, both locally and internationally. She completed a TEDx speech in 2011 related to Trauma, Change, and Resilience and most recently completed a discussion for the Healing Project on trauma and PTSD.

Tarzie McLean is a therapist with a Masters degree in Counselling Psychology. She has been working in counselling/mental health, community development and systems transformation for about 20 years, including individual, couples and family support, group facilitation and training, program development, project management, and provincial health system work. She has always been very curious about what motivates us and what makes us who we are. She has been interested in helping and psychology and the human condition ever since she can remember. Even when she was a kid, she was very inquisitive about figuring out people and the different circumstances that wind together to create our realities.

Through her work, Tarzie is honoured to walk beside clients on their journeys to greater understanding and creating meaningful change. She finds great meaning in helping people make sense of factors that affect their ability to live a life that is desired. She is strongly committed to helping shape and improve clients’ understanding of their issues so they are better equipped to bring forth transformational shifts.

Tarzie’s educational background also includes training as a death doula / end-of-life care facilitator, as well as completion of an intensive clinical psychedelic psychotherapist training in 2016.

Natalie has a deep passion for creating spaces for people to feel safe and open for personal transformation. Her experiences as an on-air radio personality, years as an on-air television journalist producing and directing a weekly show as well as contributing to a daily live program for a national television station, allowed her to witness literally hundreds of peoples individual stories. In addition to these public roles, she managed multiple television station locations, designed and oversaw studio expansions, managed a program for artists and musicians with an international humanitarian organization, after which she started and ran her own successful company focused on personal health and wellness for 6 years.

David has worked full-time for the past 5 years in researching, advocating and moving the work of non-ordinary state therapy and psychedelic medicine forward in Canada. He co-founded and led Catalyst Presents, a Psychedelic Research Conference, and ATMA Journey Centers, a Canadian non-profit dedicated to bringing psychedelic-assisted therapy to Canadians which was successful in achieving one of Canada’s first modern legal exemptions to undertake psychedelic-assisted work. With a Master’s degree in religious studies and having been both a college professor and international humanitarian relief worker, David has always dedicated himself to the service of others. He brings a deep experience and reverence for psychedelic medicine and believes that it will play a key role in bringing healing to humanity.

Mark Haden is an Adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, School of Population and Public Health.

As the past Executive Director of MAPS Canada (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies), he has published on the issue of drug control policy and psychedelics in the following Journals: Canadian Journal of Public Health, International Journal of Drug Policy, Encyclopaedia of Public Health, Harm Reduction Journal, Open Medicine, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, and the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Mark teaches in the UBC school of medicine (Population and Public Health), obtained an MSW from UBC and worked for the Addiction Services for 28 years in counselling and supervisory roles. He has provided public education on drugs and drug policy for over 30 years and works with the Health Officers Council of British Columbia on their position papers on the issue of a regulated market for all currently illegal drugs.

He has presented in conferences and training events in many countries and was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for drug policy reform work in 2013.