Foundations of Effective Preparation: Challenges in PAT

This session is free for AMAPP members. Your discount code is in the Mighty Networks events channel. Non-members can join us for $15 +BF.

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Foundations of Effective Preparation: Challenges in PAT (3 of 4)

Preparation is where most of the difficulty in psychedelic-assisted therapy shows up first, and where a therapy team has the most room to respond. This session is about what actually goes wrong during preparation, and what to do when it does.

Lana Sciberras works through the challenges that arise for the dyad and for the client, drawing on her clinical trial and supervision experience. This is reflective, discussion-based group supervision rather than a lecture. If you have a de-identified case where any of the material below has been alive in the room, bring it.

The session covers:

• Set and setting, including what the therapist brings into the room themselves

• Rank and power in the dyad: the unconscious use of high rank, working from different therapeutic models, and the challenge of two therapists giving each other space

• Transference and countertransference, including being "organised by the field" of the client, and distinguishing the therapist's own material from the client's

• New diagnoses surfacing during preparation, including undiagnosed personality disorders presenting as dysregulation, reactivity and sensitivity to rejection

• Deprescribing, coordinating with the Authorised Prescriber and treating doctor, and when postponing preparation is the right call

• Instability in a client's housing and support network, including domestic violence, and the stability of the support person themselves

• Alcohol and substance use, and how it can blunt the dosing experience

• Working with dreams and symbolic material as a dyad, treating what surfaces between sessions as part of the work

• Adverse events and escalation, agreed with the Authorised Prescriber before preparation begins rather than worked out mid-crisis

• Referrals, dyad handovers and post-work debriefs

Lana also maps each of these challenges back to the domains in AMAPP's Competency Standards, so participants can see where the work they are already doing sits within the framework.

Who should attend: PAT practitioners, trainees and clinicians involved in preparation work, including those in dyads and triads. Practitioners who have attended earlier sessions in the series are particularly welcome, and newcomers are welcome to join.

This session may be logged toward your continuing professional development.

Facilitated by

Lana Sciberras, Clinical Psychotherapist, Psychedelic Psychotherapist, Clinical Supervisor and PAT Supervisor. MCounselHS, Advanced Diploma of Gestalt Therapy, PACFA registered Clinical. Specialised training in Gestalt Therapy, Process-oriented Psychology, MBCT, CFT and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (MAPS-trained). Therapist on Monash University's MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy trial for severe PTSD and Swinburne's psilocybin trial. Monash Clinical Psychedelic Lab, and MBCT trainer with the Contemplative Studies Centre at the University of Melbourne. More than 20 years of clinical experience.

About AMAPP

AMAPP advances safe, ethical, and evidence-informed psychedelic-assisted practice in Australia through multidisciplinary peer support, advocacy, and education.

Support AMAPP

We're a volunteer-run registered charity. If you value this work, you can add an optional donation at checkout or give directly at https://www.amapp.org.au/donate. Donations over $2 are tax-deductible.

This session is not recorded

AMAPP peer supervision sessions are not audio or video recorded. Nothing from this session is retained, replayed or shared afterwards, and no recording is made available to members or to attendees.

This is deliberate. Supervision offers the opportunity for practitioners to bring real clinical difficulty into the room, and that requires confidence that what is said stays in the room. Please treat everything discussed as confidential, do not record any part of the session yourself, and please de-identify any client material you bring.

You will find the Zoom link in your confirmation email.