Events

Ethics and Psychedelics:

Understanding Ethical Issues Involved in the Use of Psychedelic Medicines

When: September 30th, 2022, 1pm to 4:15pm

Where: Online

Speakers: Temple Morris, LCSW-C, Miranda Morris, PhD

Course Description:

Psychedelic-assisted therapy may represent an upcoming paradigm shift in the treatment of mental health problems as recent clinical trials have demonstrated strong evidence of their therapeutic benefits. This workshop will provide health care professionals an overview of the ethical issues involved in this new clinical area. While psychedelics are currently prohibited substances in most countries, the growing popularity of their therapeutic potential is leading many people to use psychedelics on their own rather than waiting for legal medical access. Therapists therefore have an ethical duty to meet this need by providing support for clients using psychedelics. However, incorporating psychedelics into traditional psychotherapy poses some risk given their prohibited status, and many therapists are unsure of how they might practice in this area. This workshop explicates such risks and describes ways in which therapists can mitigate them and strive to practice within legal and ethical boundaries. A harm reduction approach will be emphasized as a useful framework for conducting therapy around clients' use of psychedelics.

In this workshop, we will review the history of the use of psychedelics with an appreciation for their long-standing use by many indigenous cultures. Differences between the most common psychedelics will be explored as will their psychological and physical effects. The two major waves of psychedelic research will be summarized, with emphasis on more recent and rigorous clinical trials, particularly those using contextual behavioral approaches. In addition, The current legal status of psychedelics will be reviewed, including Oregon’s recent passing of an initiative to legalize psilocybin-assisted therapy. Finally, diversity issues around lack of access for underserved and non-majority populations will be explored. This workshop will emphasize the need to prioritize diversity and accessibility as psychedelic assisted psychotherapy becomes more widely available.

Though primarily didactic, this workshop will include experiential exercises and small group work to deepen their understanding of the issues related to psychedelics as a treatment tool.

Cost:

Registration fee covers instruction.

The activity is pending approval for 3 CEs for psychologists, counselors, and social workers. You must attend the course in its entirety in order to receive continuing education credits. CE credits are not given for the 10:15-10:30am break.

Refunds: A $25 processing fee will be charged for registration refunds up to September 15. We regret that after September 15, refunds cannot be made, but you may request credit toward a future program. If you need a refund, please contact us via email at drmirandamorris@gmail.com.

Learning Objectives: After attending this training you will be able to:

• Identify and describe at least 3 harm reduction strategies related to the use of psychedelic medicines
• Describe at least 2 obstacles related to lack of access for underserved and non-majority populations
• Describe the safety and addiction potential of at least one psychedelic medicine (e.g., ketamine, psilocybin, MDMA) when administered by trained professionals

Instructor Bios:

Temple Morris, LCSW-C is a clinical social worker in Bethesda, MD. Her primary modalities are Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Psychedelic Harm Reduction and Integration therapy (HRIT). In her capacity as a member of the Association of Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS), she serves on the board of the ACBS Psychedelic & NOSC Special Interest group (Psychedelic SIG), co-facilitates a monthly psychedelic HRIT peer consultation group, and co-facilitates the monthly Psychedelic SIG member meeting. She is also a founding member of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy & Healing (PATH), a collective of local clinicians committed to providing training and education around legal psychedelic medicines, as well as equitable access to ketamine-assisted therapy. She also leads a bi-monthly training and clinical consultation on trauma-informed ACT for MEND clinicians (a collaboration of trauma experts dedicated to healing communities of color).

Miranda Morris, PhD is a psychologist in Bethesda, MD. She is a Peer Reviewed ACT Trainer, and she conducts regular workshops in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and related therapies including Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) and basic Relational Frame Theory (RFT) She is currently Past President of the Board of the Association of Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS). In addition, Miranda is an active member of the Mid Atlantic Chapter of ACBS Chapter and their ACT Carolinas affiliate. In her paid-work life, she is the Co-founder of True North Therapy and Training, a group dedicated to sharing contextual behavioral therapies with clients, practitioners, and the broader community.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Please email Admin@truenorthact.com

Detailed Schedule:

Register Now

The activity has approval for 6 CEs for psychologists, counselors, and Maryland social workers. Please check with your licensing board if you an unsure about APA CE credits. You must attend the course in its entirety in order to receive continuing education credits. CE credits are not given for the 8:30 – 9:00 AM coffee/tea time, lunch time, or the 15-minute breaks.

The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science maintains responsibility for this program and its content

Refunds: A $15 processing fee will be charged for registration refunds up to Feb 20th. We regret that after Feb 20th refunds cannot be made, but you may request credit toward a future program. If you need a refund, please contact us via email at drmirandamorris@gmail.com.

Course Description:

This workshop is designed to introduce individuals who are already familiar with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to the foundations of the model: Behavioral Analysis (BA), Functional Contextualism (FC), and Relational Frame Theory. The purpose of the training is two fold: 1) to demonstrate the relevance of ACT theory and philosophy to clinical work, 2) to help clinicians increase the precision and efficacy of their interventions with clients. The workshop is ideal for practitioners who are already practicing ACT (intermediate or advanced) who want to broaden their repertoire and deepen their understanding of ACT

​The workshop will begin with the basics of BA and will include a review of operant and respondent conditioning. From there, we will explore FC, with an emphasis on the pragmatic truth criterion and functional analysis. With this foundation in place, we will explore the basics of language and cognition through an RFT lense. We will use didactic methods, metaphors and experiential exercises to help give participants a strong grasp on concepts that can be hard for clinicians to hold on to (e.g., arbitrarily applicable relational responding, multiple exemplar training, generalized operants, mutual entailment, combinatorial entailment, and transformation of stimulus function). In addition, we will use experiential exercises to help participants identity and work with different relational frames and to enhance their sensitivity to context and flexible responding. Throughout the workshop, we will use case examples, group exercises and role/real play exercises to help participants put concepts into practice.

After attending this training you will be able to:

1. Explain operant and respondent conditioning
2. Explain the terms "function" and "context" as used in functional contextual philosophy
3. Describe the pragmatic truth criterion in functional contextualism and how it informs therapeutic intervention.
4. Explain how derived relational responding is the fundamental element in human language and is a generalized operant
5. Describe the defining features of relational frames: mutual entailment, combinatorial mutual entailment and transformation of stimulus function
6. Identify and describe at least 3 relational frames
7. Practice using the ABC model in order to create a functional analysis of client behavior
8. Explain rule governed behavior and describe how augmenting, tracking and pliance respectively influence human behavior