Match dose and setting to patient capacity

The manuals converge on the idea that dose and setting need to be matched to the person’s capacity so that the experience stays tolerable and useful. Across the extracts, the sources describe dosing as something to be adjusted to sensitivity, readiness, health, experience, and the participant’s evolving response, with repeated emphasis on avoiding overwhelm, flooding, shutdown, or dissociation. Several manuals also frame this as an ongoing judgment during the session, where intensity is monitored and the person is supported to remain with difficult material when it is still within their coping capacity. The sources also agree that lower or more cautious dosing has a place when uncertainty or sensitivity is present. The ayahuasca guide explicitly notes using a smaller dose when unsure, the 5-MeO-DMT manual describes smaller doses or staged rounds as sometimes more effective, and the mescaline study links higher doses with greater adverse-event burden and the need for heightened caution. The LSD trial similarly presents the rationale for selecting a dose that is high enough for meaningful effects without overwhelming patients. Sources differ mainly in how they describe the balance between intensity and support. The MDMA manual gives the clearest account of working within a window of tolerance and distinguishes productive processing from situations that require grounding, while the other manuals focus more on dose selection and general tolerability.