Psychedelic Group Therapy

Introduction

Group psychotherapy has a long history within mainstream psychotherapeutic traditions, and many established group formats (psychoanalytic groups, encounter groups, self-help groups) have accumulated evidence of usefulness. By contrast, psychedelic-assisted therapies have largely been delivered in individual one-to-one formats in modern clinical research, leaving open whether and how psychedelics can be administered safely and effectively within group settings. The author notes a scarcity of contemporary, evidence-based data on psychedelic group therapy and recognises common professional concerns about safety, disturbance of other participants, and how to support individual inner processes in a group. This article reports a practice-based account of legally authorised psychedelic group therapy conducted in Switzerland under the Swiss Federal Office for Public Health’s compassionate use permissions between 2016 and February 2020. Rather than presenting a controlled trial, the paper aims to describe the structure, practical procedures, participant selection considerations and the authors’ experiential observations from these group workshops, and to situate them within historical and contemporary practice contexts.