It’s not hard to recognise an elder or a sage in the old stories. They usually come with easily identifiable white whiskers. Or live in an adobe hut on the edge of the village full of pots and poultices. They move slowly, and seem to move about the place not entirely entangled in the daily goings on, as though they’re seeing things the rest of us aren’t, or perhaps attending to a quiet inner voice. In these stories, the sage’s hour eventually comes. Some strife or other erupts, and the villagers seek them out. In amongst the tumult - babies crying, mothers anxious, men angry - the mob eventually falls silent and turns to them for guidance. Through words and gestures the sage identifies the order within the chaos, models trust and patience, establishes a sense of safety, and points out a path forward. The groups’ anger and anxiety drops and all present are left with a sense of…”Perhaps we are okay after all.”

If we’re lucky, we’ve likely all encountered these qualities in someone in our own life. It may have been a grandmother, or a teacher, or a therapist. We know what it feels like to be in their presence. More pointedly, we know what it feels like to be distressed, lost, or confused in their presence. We notice how our own system responds to theirs…

How do we identify these people in the modern world? Do they come with a Cert IV in sagacity, having met all the aims and objectives, and attained all the necessary competencies? If such a certificate existed, would we pay it any mind? Should we?

Herein lies the challenge of training therapists in psychedelic psychotherapy. Many of the qualities we recognise in the sage or elder are the self-same qualities that make for a good psychedelic psychotherapist - present, unflappable, knowledgeable in affairs of the world and affairs of the heart, free of psycho-phobia, skilled at being-with a person in times of great distress or ecstasy.

It is not hard to identify the qualities of a good psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist when we see them in action. It is somewhat more difficult to describe and articulate what we are seeing, as much of it seems incidental, or almost invisible.

For those of us charged with training psychedelic psychotherapists, our challenge is even greater. We may have four days, or we may have four months. How, in a short space of time, do we instil, draw out, and nurture these qualities in practitioners? Is it even possible?

This is the task that has been set before us…