Holos Centre Position Statement on the Clinical Practice Guideline for Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy

Holos Centre welcomes the publication of the Clinical Practice Guideline for Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy developed by the Czech Psychiatric Society of the Czech Medical Association J. E. Purkyně (ČLS JEP) and the Czech Neuropsychopharmacological Society (ČNPS), published in the Bulletin of the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic 21/2025. We view it as an important step toward the safe, professionally grounded, and systematic integration of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy (PAP) into healthcare in the Czech Republic.

We support the document’s emphasis on patient safety, professional qualifications of therapists, and the need to establish a clear framework for education and clinical practice. At the same time, we believe that certain aspects of the document would benefit from further development and broader professional discussion.

In this regard, we agree with a number of comments submitted by the Czech Association for Psychotherapy (ČAP) concerning the Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) for PAP, particularly regarding the involvement of qualified psychotherapists outside the healthcare sector in providing the psychotherapeutic component of care, as well as the recommendation that questions concerning accreditation of training programmes, staffing requirements, and other organisational matters be addressed through the standard processes of the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic, the Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education (IPVZ), and other relevant professional institutions.

At the same time, we would like to draw attention to another area which, in our view, is not sufficiently reflected in the current document.

When defining educational and qualification requirements, the Clinical Practice Guideline recognises primarily experience gained in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and in clinical studies involving psychedelic substances as relevant sources of professional competence. We believe that this framework is unnecessarily narrow and does not adequately recognise other professional fields in which competencies relevant to PAP may also be developed.

A number of competencies required by the document—including familiarity with altered states of consciousness, the ability to safely support individuals throughout such experiences, work with somatic manifestations of the process, facilitation of psychological material, and the integration of the experience afterwards—may also be developed through professionally guided work with non-pharmacologically induced altered states of consciousness.

We therefore believe that future educational standards and competency models for PAP should also take into account professional experience gained in these areas.

This is not intended as a substitute for medical expertise, nor does it question the importance of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. Rather, it is a recognition that some of the competencies necessary for working with altered states of consciousness may be acquired through different professional pathways.

We also consider experiential training to be an important component of professional preparation. While the current professional literature does not regard personal experience with psychedelics as a mandatory prerequisite for practising PAP, it does point to the value of personal experience with altered states of consciousness in developing the ability to understand their dynamics, facilitate them safely, and support their integration in a sensitive and effective manner. We therefore believe that professionally guided experiential work with non-pharmacologically induced altered states of consciousness may represent a relevant and safe means of developing certain competencies required for PAP practice. The principle of experiential training has, after all, long been a standard component of education in many psychotherapeutic traditions.

We are convinced that the future educational framework for psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy should be based primarily on clearly defined competencies and methods of assessing them, rather than on the assumption that there is only one acceptable educational or professional pathway through which such competencies may be acquired.

We are pleased that representatives of Holos Centre have been invited to participate in the roundtable discussions of the working group established under the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic. We are prepared to continue contributing to the professional discussion concerning the future development of educational standards in the field of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy in the Czech Republic, and we hereby submit our proposal for a training framework as a contribution to that ongoing discussion.

On behalf of Holos Centre

MUDr. Milan Hrabánek

Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist

Mgr. Ing. Tomáš Váňa

Psychologist

Selected literature

Phelps, J., Agin-Liebes, G., & Malone, T. (2017). Developing guidelines and competencies for the training of psychedelic therapists. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 62(5), 641–682. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167817711304

Gorman, I., Nielson, E. M., Molinar, A., Cassidy, K., & Sabbagh, J. (2021). Development and evaluation of a therapist training program for psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression in clinical research. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, 586682. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.586682 

Whelan, A., Villiger, C., & Brennan, R. (2024). Personal psychedelic experience of psychedelic therapists during training: Should it be required, optional, or prohibited? Journal of Psychedelic Studies.

Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. (2025). Psychedelic training framework. Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. https://www.ranzcp.org