7 November 2025
Beyond the Clinical Trials
A Culturally Grounded Research Approach to Understanding Black Learners and Our Psychedelic Training Programs
By: Dr. Deidra Somerville, MSW, Carsten Fisher, MS, Courtney Watson, M. Ed, LMFT, Ayize Jama-Everett M.Div, M.A., M.FA
MAPS Bulletin: Volume XXXIV
Context and Purpose
Psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) is emerging as a promising approach to treating trauma and related mental health disorders, but many of the existing clinical trials, training programs, and research initiatives have neglected to center the needs, histories, and healing traditions of Black communities. While there is growing empirical support for the use of psychedelics in addressing trauma, depression, and existential distress (e.g., Ross et al., 2016), Black practitioners and participants remain vastly underrepresented in this landscape, both as patients and as providers.
Our study seeks to explore how Black healing practitioners who have completed psychedelic-assisted therapy training adapt and resist dominant models of training and care in service of their communities, what the lived experiences of these Black therapists, medical providers, and practitioners are while navigating these training programs, and how institutional and underground psychedelic assisted training programs (PATs) support or fail to support Black healing practitioners. In doing so, our study contributes to the growing but still limited body of literature on cultural inclusion, epistemic justice, and the spiritual dimensions of healing within psychedelic spaces (George et al., 2020; Smith et al., 2022).
Research shows that people of color, particularly Black Americans, are both disproportionately impacted by trauma and often underserved in traditional mental health systems (Williams et al., 2020). Additionally, Black communities have historically used plant medicine and altered states of consciousness in culturally sanctioned healing practices, yet these traditions are rarely acknowledged in the medicalization of psychedelics (Williams et al., 2021; George et al., 2020). As mainstream psychedelic research and therapy gain legitimacy, this study investigates what gets lost in translation, and how Black healers reclaim space and define their own metrics of success.
Why This Study Now
This inquiry is especially timely as psychedelics become more integrated into mainstream mental health services. Training programs have proliferated across the U.S., yet there is little research evaluating whether these trainings are culturally responsive, or how trainees from historically marginalized communities experience them. Moreover, studies suggest that firsthand experience with nonordinary states of consciousness may be essential for therapists working in PAT (Gorman et al., 2021), but there is no standard for how these experiences are facilitated in
training, nor how they interact with culturally specific frameworks of healing (George et al., 2020).
For Black practitioners, psychedelic therapy training often involves negotiating predominantly white spaces that may be ill-equipped to engage with racial trauma, ancestral knowledge, and collective healing frameworks (Smith et al., 2022). Black therapists face the dual burden of carrying their community’s needs while translating those needs into clinical language that institutions recognize. This study aims to foreground those complexities and contribute to curriculum development that better reflects the pluralism of healing traditions.
This qualitative study is guided by a central research question: How do Black healing practitioners experience and interpret psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) training programs? In exploring this question, the study also seeks to understand the ways in which practitioners’ cultural, ancestral, and community-based healing traditions shape their approach to PAT. Additionally, it asks how training programs assess cultural responsiveness in their training curricula. Finally, the study investigates the specific barriers and opportunities that arise for Black practitioners as they navigate predominantly white training environments.
Methodology
This study uses an Indigenous Research Methodology (IRM) framework (Chilisa, 2017; Wilson, 2008), which repositions the role of the researcher as a participant conceptualizer and interpreter of wisdom. This model centers relational accountability not to an academic institution, but to the communities, ancestors, and traditions from which this work arises. The study is conducted under the guidance of a Council of Elders, composed of three practitioners with decades of experience each, in psychedelic-assisted therapy and ceremonial leadership. These Elders serve as epistemic authorities and ensure that the research process honors spiritual, cultural, and methodological integrity.
Participant Overview
- Survey Participants: ~150 Black-identified PAT practitioners across the U.S. and abroad will complete an online survey.
- Focus Groups: ~24 participants (selected from the survey pool) will be divided into six geographically stratified focus groups across the country (Southeast, Southwest, Northwest, Northeast, West, Midwest). Each group will meet twice in one weekend—once for the interview and once for member checking.
- Council of Elders: 3 ceremonial leaders with 20+ years of experience, selected for their expertise and recognition within the psychedelic therapy field. They will not serve as research participants but will guide methodological integrity.
Participants include therapists, facilitators, medical professionals (such as physicians and nurse practitioners), spiritual healers, and ceremonial guides. The study intentionally includes both formally credentialed and informally trained practitioners—recognizing that cultural legitimacy and lived experience are as vital as institutional certification.
Data Collection & Analysis
The study will employ semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and surveys to gather data. A thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2019) will guide the interpretation, with careful attention to how power, culture, and spiritual frameworks shape participants’ narratives. The research team will engage in iterative cycles of member checking, collaborative coding, and reflection with the Council of Elders.
Significance
This study seeks not merely to add Black voices to an existing field but to reshape how the field understands legitimacy, healing, and therapeutic effectiveness. By centering Black epistemologies and ancestral knowledge, the research challenges the narrow clinical framing of psychedelic medicine. True transformation requires more than diversity metrics—it requires paradigm shifts in how we define care, who we recognize as experts, and what we count as evidence. The findings of this study will inform recommendations for curriculum reform, training structure, and community accountability in PAT programs. It also aims to elevate the role of spiritual and cultural health practitioners, who have long held the knowledge and courage to guide their communities toward healing—often without institutional support or recognition.
Call to Action
Our research study is looking for Black psychedelic-assisted practitioners who have enrolled and participated in any psychedelic-assisted training program, to complete our survey. If you are a psychedelic-assisted healing practitioner who identifies as Black, or if you know someone who identifies as a Black psychedelic-assisted healing practitioner, please contact Ayize Jama-Everett at community@access2doorways.com.
References
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11(4), 589–597.
Chilisa, B. (2017). Indigenous research methodologies. Sage.
Dames, S., et al. (2023). Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Training: An Argument in Support of Firsthand Experience of Nonordinary States of Consciousness in the Development of Competence. Psychedelic Medicine, 2(3).
George, J. R., Michaels, T. I., Sevelius, J. M., & Williams, M. T. (2020). The psychedelic renaissance and the limitations of a White-dominant medical framework: A call for indigenous and ethnic minority inclusion. Journal of Psychedelic Studies, 4(1), 4–15.
Ross, S., Bossis, A., Guss, J., Agin-Liebes, G., Malone, T., Cohen, B., … & Griffiths, R. (2016). Rapid and sustained symptom reduction following psilocybin treatment for anxiety and depression in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 30(12), 1165–1180.
Smith, D. T., Faber, S. C., Buchanan, N. T., Foster, D., & Green, L. (2022). The need for psychedelic-assisted therapy in the Black community and the burdens of its provision. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, 774736. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.774736
Williams, M. T., Reed, S., & Aggarwal, R. (2020). Culturally informed research design: The development of the racial trauma treatment intervention. The Counseling Psychologist, 48(5), 702–734.
Williams, M. T., Reed, S., Aggarwal, R., & Lewis, C. (2021). People of color in North America report improvements in racial trauma and mental health symptoms following psychedelic experiences. Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy, 28(3), 215–226.
Wilson, S. (2008). Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Fernwood Publishing.
Dr. Deidra Somerville, MSW
Dr. Somerville is a servant leader and seasoned organizational strategist with 25+ years advancing community-driven healing initiatives. She was trained in research ethics in 2013 and has applied her skills and training as both a researcher and research administrator in an academic setting. She is trained in Indigenous methodologies and brings expertise in social network analysis, qualitative design and community-centered evaluation. Her leadership ensures this project is grounded in equity, accountability and meaningful engagement with those most impacted by systemic inequities.
Carsten Fisher, MS
Carsten Fisher is a behaviorist and clinical psychologist in training. He has experience providing
therapy to children, adolescents, and adults diagnosed with a wide range of mental health disorders, and is currently pursuing a doctorate in clinical psychology. Carsten leverages his additional training in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to bring a multidimensional approach to his work as a mental
health practitioner and researcher. He is a lifelong learner committed to serving his community, focusing on accessibility and equity of care, and community-centered liberation as guidance for his work.
Courtney
Watson, M. Ed, LMFT
Courtney is a queer Black mother, licensed therapist and founder of Access to Doorways, the non-profit that launched this research project. Grounded in African and Indigenous knowledge systems, her work bridges clinical practice, ancestral healing and research justice. In this project Courtney draws on her masters of education to support the analysis of culturally attuned curricula and the design of qualitative research methods that center Black practitioners’ lived experiences.
Ayize Jama
Everett M.Div, M.A., M.FA
Ayize is a community-based therapist, guerrilla theologian and Afrofuturist with 3 masters degrees in Divinity, Psychology and Fine Arts, Writing. With over 20 years of teaching experience his work spaces adolescent psychology, sacred plant medicines and the history of substance use. Ayize brings deep expertise in cultural narrative, spiritual frameworks and educational design to this research, helping to ensure that Black practitioners’ experiences are documented with integrity, depth and historical context.
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