Manualized psychedelic psychotherapy delivery

Across these manuals, the common thread is a structured, manualised psychotherapy model delivered alongside a psychedelic or ketamine session, with preparation, dosing, integration, and follow-up all treated as distinct parts of the work. The manuals repeatedly emphasise fidelity to the treatment manual, protocol-defined procedures, and consistency across sessions, participants, and sites. Several also describe a supportive stance during dosing, often non-directive or largely non-directive, while still maintaining active therapeutic presence and attention to the participant’s inner process. The sources differ in the degree of structure and the therapeutic emphasis. Some manuals are tightly protocolled and research-facing, with explicit training, video review, adherence criteria, and independent review for competence, while others place more weight on supportive psychotherapy, existential exploration, or CBT-style homework and action planning. They also vary in session architecture, from MDMA protocols with preparatory, experimental, integrative, overnight, and follow-up sessions, to psilocybin or LSD studies with fewer dosing sessions, and to ketamine-linked manualised CBT or existential therapy models. The content focus also differs, with some manuals centring trauma processing and safety, others alcohol use, depression, demoralisation, or anxiety associated with life-threatening illness.