Registration for our Psykedeelit 2025 conference taking place on October 2–4 is now open! Seats are limited, and more than half of them are already reserved, so ensure your place by registering in Psyty’s web store.

The scientific and social programs of the conference and more information are available at the conference page.

The registration fee is 65/40 €. Members who have paid Psyty’s membership for 2025 get a 10 € discount – we’ll email a discount code to members.

More information about the conference here.

When explaining the therapeutic effects of psychedelics, their potential for facilitating changes in deeply ingrained patterns of thought and behaviour is often mentioned as a key ingredient. This is part of the rationale for why there’s increasing interest in investigating whether psychedelics can be useful for treating eating disorders.

In our next webinar lecture, held on Tuesday September 9th at 9AM UTC+3, postdoc researcher Hannah Douglass will outline the existing evidence for the use of psychedelics therapeutically in the treatment of eating disorders, and explore the findings of her PhD work. Specifically, the lecture will focus on whether psilocybin was a safe and feasible intervention in women with anorexia nervosa, whether it was therapeutically beneficial, and the moderators of this response.

The event contains a Q&A section and the total length is 2 hours. Please note the atypical starting time for the webinar – our lecturer resides in New Zealand, which in Finnish time means that we’ll be starting at nine in the morning!

We offer this webinar as a pay what you can event: you can participate without paying, but by paying, you can help us produce more events like this and ensure that we can keep offering them to people regardless of their financial circumstances.

0 € – register here
5–20 € – buy ticket here

If you pay for the ticket, please also remember to register for the webinar via the registration link!

You can also support us by paying our membership fee for 2025. You’ll find our membership products on the main page of our web store. We also accept donations.

About the speaker:

Dr Hannah Douglass is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Auckland where she is working on an LSD microdosing study for mild-moderate depression. She also holds an Honorary Research Associate role at Imperial College London, where she is finalising her doctoral work investigating psilocybin as a treatment for adult females with anorexia nervosa. Hannah is particularly interested in the potential effects of psychedelics on eating behaviours and body dissatisfaction in women’s health conditions and the potential for these compounds to induce neuroplasticity, which she plans to explore further with her team in Auckland.

What are the most important qualities and skills of someone aspiring to be an ethical psychedelic therapist? Next Tuesday, August 26th at 7PM UTC+3, we’ll investigate this question in a webinar lecture with a pioneer in psychedelic therapist training, psychologist Janis Phelps, PhD.

There are many important areas of being an ethical psychedelic therapist. Inner elements include humility, an abiding emphatic presence, a commitment to a life of honest self-reflection and the ability to take care of oneself and one’s needs. From the point of view of therapeutic practice and interaction, skills in maintaining a consistently safe set and setting, cultural competency and careful delivery of informed consent and consent practices are all relevant. Professional elements include professional transparency, a commitment to peer supervision and the improvement of professional institutions.

The webinar is aimed for professionals and students of psychotherapy and other clinical fields, but also for anyone interested in learning more about the aspects of ethical psychedelic therapy.

The event contains a Q&A section and the total length is 2 hours. Please note the atypical starting time for the webinar!

We offer this webinar as a pay what you can event: you can participate without paying, but by paying, you can help us produce more events like this and ensure that we can keep offering them to people regardless of their financial circumstances.

0 € – register here
5–20 € – buy ticket here

If you pay for the ticket, please also remember to register for the webinar via the registration link!

You can also support us by paying our membership fee for 2025. You’ll find our membership products on the main page of our web store. We also accept donations.

About the speaker:

Janis Phelps, PhD, is a leader in the field of psychedelic therapy training as the Director of the Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies Center. As the Center’s founder, Dr. Phelps developed and launched the first university accredited, post- graduate training program for psychedelic therapy and research. She has held the position of the Dean of Faculty of the six doctoral departments in the CIIS School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Her landmark 2017 publication, “Developing Guidelines and Competencies for the Training of Psychedelic Therapists”, has garnered 6,000+ reads which is a testament to the interest in training worldwide. These ideas are further developed in two book chapters and other journal publications. A licensed clinical psychologist, Dr. Phelps is a board member of the Heffter Research Institute, which has conducted highly influential psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy research since the 1990’s. She consults internationally and presents on methods of scaling effective training programs to meet the burgeoning need for well-trained facilitators and therapists in the field of psychedelic medicine. Dr. Phelps maintains a private clinical practice in California.

Sometimes, even quite often, people encounter ‘entities’ on psychedelics, which may give them messages, heal them or sometimes seem to threaten them or cause them harm. This presents a dilemma for the budding psychedelic therapy industry and the related field of research regarding informed consent. Don’t mention the entities, and people might express ontological shock at encountering them. Do mention the entities, and people and regulators might very well be put off and not take the field seriously, or even see it as spiritually dangerous. 

But precisely what sort of entity encounters do people report? What different attitudes to these experiences has the psychedelic therapy field taken? And what might be a wise approach to this topic, for therapists, guides and industry figures? On Tuesday June 17th at 6PM (UTC+3), we’ll dig into these questions in a webinar lecture by Jules Evans, philosopher, historian and director of the Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project.

The event contains a Q&A section and the total length is 2 hours.

We offer this webinar as a pay what you can event: you can participate without paying, but by paying, you can help us produce more events like this and ensure that we can keep offering them to people regardless of their financial circumstances.

0 € – register here
5–20 € – buy ticket here

If you pay for the ticket, please also remember to register for the webinar via the registration link!

You can also support us by paying our membership fee for 2025. You’ll find our membership products on the main page of our web store. We also accept donations.

About the speaker:

Jules Evans is the director of the Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project, a non-profit which researches post-psychedelic difficulties and what helps people cope with them. He is also the editor of Ecstatic Integration, a popular substack exploring psychedelic and ecstatic integration. He is an honorary research fellow at the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London. He’s the author / co-author of four books, including Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations (2012), The Art of Losing Control (2017) and Breaking Open: Finding a Way Through Spiritual Emergency (2020). He has written and presented for publications including The Times, Economist, Spectator, Financial Times, BBC Radio 4, Audible and Aeon, and he was a BBC New Generation Thinker.

Spiritual or religious elements are a relevant part of the effects of psychedelics. Some people have argued that in addition to the more typical mental health professionals, psychedelic care also needs people who focus on the aforementioned elements – what has been called psychedelic chaplains.

One of the people who has been calling for such an approach is lawyer, law professor, and interdisciplinary psychedelic studies scholar Victoria Litman. In a webinar presentation organized by the Finnish Association for Psychedelic Research on Tuesday June 12th, she will argue that it is ethically necessary to include spiritual care due to the enhanced suggestibility of individuals under the influence of psychedelics. This suggestibility creates a situation ripe for imposition, whether intentional or accidental, of spiritual or religious ideas, which there have already been allegations of. Her view is that ethical psychedelic facilitation requires accounting for this possibility and actively working to prevent it.

Litman sees psychedelic chaplains as playing an important role in informed consent processes, training medical professionals and holding space for participants during psychedelic experiences and helping them integrate those experiences. She argues that including psychedelic chaplains may enhance therapeutic benefits through supporting continued communal engagement after psychedelic sessions. She also brings up an economic perspective: The high cost of providing medical professionals for long periods of time is one of the biggest financial barriers to expanding access to psychedelic treatments.

The event contains a Q&A section and the total length is 1,5 hours.

We offer this webinar as a pay what you can event: you can participate without paying, but by paying, you can help us produce more events like this and ensure that we can keep offering them to people regardless of their financial circumstances.

0 € – register here
5 € – buy ticket here
10 € – buy ticket here
20 € – buy ticket here

If you pay for the ticket, please also remember to register for the webinar via the registration link!

You can also support us by paying our membership fee for 2025. You’ll find our membership products on the main page of our web store. We also accept donations.

Victoria Litman M.Div., J.D., LL.M. is a visiting professor at Roger Williams University School of Law, where she teaches Torts, Cannabis Law, and Psychedelics Law. She is also a Fellow in Psychedelic Law and Spirituality at Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics. Her scholarly work focuses on the intersections of tax law, religious freedom, and emerging areas such as cannabis and psychedelics law.

Professor Litman earned an LL.M. in Taxation with Distinction from Georgetown University Law Center during which she was a Graduate Tax Scholar, a JD (cum laude) from New York Law School, a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary (concentration in Religion and Law), and a BA in Religion from the University of Southern California.

The evolving role of psychedelics in mental health treatment is often referred to as the “psychedelic renaissance” or even a “paradigm shift” in psychiatry. But does this resurgence truly represent a revolutionary change, might it be better understood as an integration of existing therapeutic approaches and perspectives?

On Thursday May 22nd at 6PM (UTC+3), in a webinar lecture organized by the Finnish Association for Psychedelic Research, we’ll dig into this question with Swiss postdoctoral researcher Helena Aicher. The discussion will highlight both the novel and familiar aspects of psychedelic treatments in comparison to traditional therapies. Emphasizing a balanced, bio-psycho-social model, we’ll consider how psychedelics can enhance, rather than replace, existing psychiatric frameworks, advocating for a more nuanced understanding of their place within modern mental health care.

The event contains a Q&A section and the total length is 2 hours. 

We offer this webinar as a pay what you can event: you can participate without paying, but by paying, you can help us produce more events like this and ensure that we can keep offering them to people regardless of their financial circumstances.

0 € – register here
5 € – buy ticket here
10 € – buy ticket here
20 € – buy ticket here

If you pay for the ticket, please also remember to register for the webinar via the registration link!

You can also support us by paying our membership fee for 2025. You’ll find our membership products on the main page of our web store. We also accept donations. 

About the speaker:

Postdoctoral researcher at the Universities of Zürich and Basel. Helena is involved in several trials investigating psychedelics, mechanisms, and contextual factors. She also works as a psychotherapist including the limited medical use of psychedelics. With her engagement in the Swiss Medical Association for Psychedelic Therapy (SÄPT) she’s involved as a trainer in psychedelic therapist trainings. Helena bridges science and practice, contributing to the development and implementation of psychedelic-assisted therapy.

What if the brain’s most sensitive windows for learning and change—once thought to close forever—could be reopened? And what if psychedelics held one possible key for such reopenings? 

On Tuesday April 29th 2025 at 6PM UTC+3, in a webinar lecture organized by the Finnish Association for Psychedelic Research, neuroscientist Gül Dölen will share her research uncovering how psychedelic drugs like MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, and ibogaine can reopen critical periods of brain plasticity, particularly those involved in social reward learning. Understanding psychedelics through this framework dramatically expands the scope of disorders (including autism, stroke, and allergy) that might benefit from adjunct therapy with psychedelics.

The session will also provide a look into her lab’s research on psychedelics and octopuses – why octopuses were given MDMA and how they reacted, and how such research can help improve our understanding of why critical periods exist, why they close, and how they might be reopened.

The event contains a Q&A section and the total length is 2 hours. The event is free of charge – you can register here. The webinar will not be recorded.

You can support us in organizing such free events by paying our membership fee for 2025. You’ll find our membership products on the main page of our web store. We also accept donations. 

About the speaker:

Dr. Gül Dölen is a Professor and the Renee and Bob Parsons Endowed chair in the Department of Psychology, the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, and the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics at the University of California, Berkeley. Additionally, Dr. Dölen maintains an adjunct professorship in Neuroscience and Neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she previously served as an Assistant and Associate Professor. Dr. Dölen earned her M.D., Ph.D. at Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and completed postdoctoral training at Stanford University. Dr. Dölen is the recipient of several prestigious awards including: the Joukowsky Family Foundation Award, the Conquer Fragile X Rising Star Award, the Angus MacDonald Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the Society for Social Neuroscience Early Career Award, the Searle Scholars Award, the Johns Hopkins University President’s Frontier Award, and has been named one of Vox magazine’s 50 Future Perfect.

At least in the popular culture of the 1950s and 1960s, LSD was almost synonymous with “psychedelic drugs”. In the current second major wave of psychedelic research, psilocybin has received much more attention than LSD. Two relevant reasons for this are the shorter effects of psilocybin and the negative stigma attached to LSD. But as psychedelic research has become more mainstream, increasing attention has also gradually been given to the study of LSD.

One of the things LSD has recently been researched for is as an aid for the treatment of depression, about which the Finnish Association for Psychedelic Research will organize a webinar lecture on Monday April 7th, 2025, at 6PM UTC+3. In the webinar, psychopharmacology PhD student Anna Becker from the University of Basel, Switzerland, will present her research on the topic. Her work covers both research on the physiological processes related to psychedelics and the psychotherapeutic applications of psychedelics. 

In addition to her depression research, Becker will also present her research investigating how SSRI medication, often used for the treatment of depression, and ketanserin, a potent 5-HT2a serotonin receptor antagonist, affect the subjective effects of psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD.

We offer this webinar as a pay what you can event: you can participate without paying, but by paying, you can help us produce more events like this and ensure that we can keep offering them to people regardless of their financial circumstances.

0 € – register here
5 € – buy ticket here
10 € – buy ticket here
20 € – buy ticket here

The event contains a Q&A section and the total length is 2 hours. Please note that while the event will be recorded, this time the recording will only be available to our full members. More about membership types here. 

You can also support us by paying our membership fee for 2025. You’ll find our membership products on the main page of our web store. We also accept donations. 

About the speaker:

Anna Becker studied Clinical Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Basel. Since 2020 she has been a PhD candidate in the psychopharmacology research group of Prof. Matthias Liechti at the University Hospital Basel where she investigates the role of 5-HT2A receptor down-regulation and antagonism in the acute effects of psilocybin and LSD. In this function, she has accompanied over 200 psychedelic experiences. She is interested in the basic physiological processes of psychedelics as well as their psychotherapeutic applications. She started psychotherapy training in 2021 and has been working clinically since. Hence, she was able to conduct LSD assisted therapy sessions within the “LSD against depression” phase II study in Basel.

Can ayahuasca be helpful for dealing with grief? This question will be explored in a webinar lecture organized by the Finnish Association for Psychedelic Research (Psykedeelitutkimusyhdistys) on Tue March 18, 2025, at 6PM UTC+2. Drawing from a clinical study with 82 participants, psychologist Débora González will share the principal outcomes of the study. We will explore key insights about how ayahuasca, within a meaning-reconstruction therapy framework, can help find acceptance of death, promote continuing bonds with the deceased, and foster post-traumatic growth.

Dr. González will highlight the mechanisms of sense-making and meaning-making as key therapeutic agents of change in psychedelic therapy. She will also delve into the role of community and nature, offering some reflection on how these elements are relevant in consolidating change in the process of grief within Western culture. 

The event contains a Q&A section and the total length is 2 hours. The event is free of charge – you can register here. You can support us in organizing such free events by paying our membership fee for 2025. You’ll find our membership products on the main page of our web store. We also accept donations. 

About the speaker:

Débora González is a psychologist and holds a PhD in pharmacology. She currently combines her role as a researcher at the Sant Joan de Déu Foundation (Barcelona) with her position as a professor at Isabel I University (Spain) and as a clinician at Clínica Synaptica (Barcelona). In recent years, she has been dedicated to researching the therapeutic potential of ayahuasca in the grieving process following the loss of a loved one.