Is there a code of ethics for psychedelic facilitators who aren't licensed therapists?

Version 1.0 · Last reviewed August 2026. This is a living code, not a rulebook. It gets revised in public as the field teaches us better, and every change is recorded in the changelog at the bottom of this page. Nothing here is set in stone, including our own positions.

Preamble: who this is for

This code is for the people the existing codes skipped.

If you are a licensed therapist working inside a clinical trial, MAPS wrote a code of ethics for you in 2022. If you are an academic, there is a rich literature on psychedelic ethics waiting for you. But most of the people actually guiding psychedelic experiences right now are neither. They are coaches, sitters, ceremonialists, retreat facilitators, and practitioners in legal gray zones, working alone, with no institution behind them and no shared ethical floor beneath them.

That is who this was written for: the independent facilitator who takes the work seriously and has nowhere to point when someone asks, “what standard do you hold yourself to?”

But the answer turned out to be wider than the people it was written for, and this next part is mine rather than the network’s.

I am a licensed marriage and family therapist. My board’s code answers a great deal of what is in the first half of this page, and it was written for a different setting than this one. It tells me what I may not do. It does not tell me what to do at hour six, when someone in a non-ordinary state reaches for a hand and nothing in the manual reaches that far.

If you hold a clinical license, or a state facilitator license in Oregon or Colorado, your board has already told you where the lines are. It has not told you what to do when your own unfinished history walks into the room in the middle of someone else’s session. These are not licensure problems. They are proximity problems, and proximity is what this work is made of.

The chair is different. The questions underneath are not.

I do not endorse codes of ethics anymore. I endorse living codes.

That is an uncomfortable thing to publish at the top of one, so let me be exact about what I mean. If you are licensed, read this alongside your board’s code and never instead of it. What I am refusing is not the rules. It is the idea that a document can do the work. A code is external. It is static. It is finished on the day it is published, and I am not finished.

Start with what no code can do.

A code cannot license you. Adopting this one does not make anyone qualified, and nothing written on a page ever will. Qualification comes from training, hours, supervision, and the long unglamorous years after the certificate.

A code cannot shield you. Nothing here is legal advice, and adopting a code does not change the legal status of your work. Position 3 says that plainly, and saying it plainly is the most a code can do.

A code cannot bind you. Nobody signs this. It is an offering, not an oath. PGN members are not held to it and PGN does not enforce it, because an ethic that depends on enforcement is not an ethic. It is compliance.

A code cannot train you. It cannot teach you to feel your own nervous system rise, to notice the exact moment your interest in a journeyer changed temperature, or to sit still when stillness is the intervention. It can only name the standard those capacities are for.

So the code stays. It is a doorway: free, deliberately basic, and the first touchpoint for a field that mostly has none.

But a doorway is not a room.

This page is two documents on purpose. Positions 1 through 8 are the code: numbered, plain, citable, the part you hand to a client, a venue, or a colleague who asks what standard you hold. Everything after position 8 is the room: 11 embodied virtues, what each one looks like in balance and out of balance, and a practice for rewriting the whole thing in your own words once a year. The first half is what you can show someone. The second half is what holds when nobody is watching.

Take what serves your practice. Contemplate the rest. That contemplation is part of how a young field builds real ethics.

1. Touch, consent, and capacity

Our position: consent to touch is negotiated before the session, is limited to what was agreed, and can be revoked at any moment, including nonverbally. A person in a non-ordinary state cannot consent to new forms of touch.

Touch is the most published flashpoint in psychedelic ethics for a reason. Grounding touch, a hand on the hand or shoulder, agreed to in advance, can be a genuine anchor. Anything beyond what was explicitly negotiated while your client had full capacity is an ethically precarious situation, no matter how the moment feels. And the moment will sometimes feel confusing. Sexual energy can surface in sessions. Naming that reality ahead of time, to yourself and in your agreements, is what makes it navigable instead of dangerous.

For the full picture, including what to put in your consent conversation, read what counts as ethical touch during a psychedelic session.

2. Scope of practice

Our position: describe yourself with the words that are actually true, and work only within what those words permit.

The words guide, coach, facilitator, and therapist are not interchangeable, and the differences are not branding. They are legal categories with different obligations, and your clients deserve to know which one they are sitting with. Stretching your title is not a marketing choice. It is the first ethical breach, because every agreement that follows is built on it.

The plain-language breakdown lives in coach, guide, or therapist: pick the word that is actually true.

3. Legal risk and honest practice

Our position: know the actual legal status of your work in your jurisdiction, carry that risk knowingly, and never transfer it to a client through vagueness or false reassurance.

Most independent facilitation in the United States happens outside any legal framework. Pretending otherwise, to yourself or to the people you serve, is an ethical failure separate from the legal one. Honest practice means you clearly state what your client is agreeing to participate in. This code does not tell anyone to break the law or how to avoid its consequences. It tells you that whatever risk you choose to carry must be carried with open eyes and disclosed to your clients.

The fuller accounting is in the legal risk no one wants to say out loud.

4. Dual relationships and boundaries

Our position: the smaller the community, the more explicit the boundary. Romantic and sexual relationships with current clients are never acceptable. Every other overlap, friend, colleague, business partner, gets named out loud before the work begins.

This field runs on small, overlapping communities, and research from within the field says dual relationships are remarkably common and almost never examined. Good intentions are not a boundary. If you are considering guiding someone who is already in your life, that decision deserves a real conversation about what changes, what the exit looks like, and who you both can talk to when it gets complicated. If you cannot have that conversation, that is your answer.

5. Transference and power

Our position: assume the power imbalance exists, because it does. Your client’s projection is not affection, and your countertransference is not information about them. Your own inner work is the safety mechanism.

Someone in an expanded state, in your care, will sometimes hand you more authority than any person should hold. What you do with that moment defines the work. The guides who cause harm are rarely the ones who set out to. They are the ones who stopped examining what the work was activating in them. This is why a facilitator’s ongoing self-reflection is not personal enrichment. It is a duty of care.

6. Screening and duty of care

Our position: screen every client before every engagement, know the contraindications you are responsible for catching, and refer out when the situation exceeds what you are qualified to hold. Care does not end when the session does.

You do not need a medical license to ask about psychiatric history, medications, cardiac conditions, and family history of psychosis. You need a medical license to override the answers, and even then, a consultation should be conducted and documented. A facilitator who under-screens because a booking matters more than a red flag has already answered the question of where their ethics stand. And the duty extends past the session itself: integration support, or an honest handoff to someone who can provide it, is part of the work, not an upsell.

7. Supervision and peer accountability

Our position: practicing in isolation is itself an ethical risk. Every practicing facilitator maintains some structure where their real cases and real dilemmas are seen by peers.

Nearly every serious failure in this field grew in the dark, in a practice no colleague ever looked at. Peer consultation is where the confusing session, the attraction you did not expect, the boundary that drifted, get named while they are still small. If you have no room where you can say the true thing about your work, building one is not optional self-care. It is the infrastructure of safe practice. This conviction is why PGN exists, and it holds whether or not you ever join anything we run.

8. Certification and legitimacy

Our position: represent your training exactly as it is. A certificate is evidence of a course completed, not the quality of your work or the extent of your ethical practice, and treating it as more than that misleads the public and endangers clients.

Anyone can currently print a certificate, and anyone can call themselves a guide. That is not a reason to abandon standards. It is the reason to hold them visibly. Evaluate any training you take, or teach, on what it actually certifies, and say no more than that. The field earns legitimacy one honestly-described practitioner at a time who commits to their inner housekeeping.

Before you pay for anything, read how to tell whether a psychedelic certification is legitimate.

What are the 11 embodied virtues?

The 11 embodied virtues of psychedelic facilitation are presence, humility, reverence, attunement, discernment, accountability, sovereignty, transparency, discipline, reciprocity, and devotion. They are the interior side of everything above: qualities a facilitator has to grow rather than agree to.

A position tells you where the line is. A virtue is what keeps you on the right side of it at 3am, when the person in front of you is not okay and there is nobody to ask.

These are the 11 I came to, and I wrote them into my own living code on July 1, 2025. In each one below, the quoted block is mine: the motto, and the paragraph I wrote for myself. It is a model, not a template, and yours will not sound like mine. I number them in the order of my own living code, which is an order and not a ranking. I say journeyer in this half and client in the first half, because the first half is the language of agreements and this half is the language of ceremony.

Each virtue carries two lists in my words: the light behaviors, when it is in balance, and the shadow behaviors, when it is not. The shadow lists are the useful half. They are not accusations. They are early warning. Most ethical failures in this field did not begin as violations. They began as one of these, unnoticed and unnamed to anyone. Read them slowly, and notice which ones you would rather skip past.

Nobody is in balance in all 11 at once. That is not what the list is for.

1. Presence

“I attune fully to what is here, within and around me.”

My living code: I remain grounded and attuned throughout preparation, facilitation, and integration. I regulate my own nervous system and avoid dissociation, distraction, or performance. I arrive prepared and spacious enough to respond to what emerges, not react from habit or ego.

Presence is the virtue of grounded, attuned, real-time awareness. It anchors the facilitator in the now, allowing for responsiveness over reactivity.

Light behaviors, in balance:

• Emergent needs are noticed and responded to.
• Emotional and spiritual material is held, not bypassed.
• Journeyers feel seen, safe, and acknowledged.
• The facilitator can navigate mystery, rupture, and silence without collapsing or controlling.

Shadow behaviors, out of balance:

• Dissociation or “spacing out” while holding space (energetic abandonment).
• Preoccupation with one’s own performance.
• Over-reliance on protocol or scripts.
• Energetic overwhelm or merging due to not being anchored in one’s own body.
• Misattunement to distress signals.
• Being physically present but emotionally unavailable.

2. Humility

“I remain a student of the work, not the source of it.”

My living code: I do not claim mastery I have not earned. I acknowledge my limits and seek support, mentorship, or supervision when needed. I do not pedestal myself, nor do I allow others to. I remain a student of the mystery, not its master.

Humility is the antidote to ego inflation. It grounds facilitators in service, not self-importance.

Light behaviors, in balance:

• The facilitator stays in right-size relationship with the work.
• Journeyers aren’t pressured to pedestal their guide.
• The facilitator stays curious, teachable, and accountable.

Shadow behaviors, out of balance:

• Spiritual narcissism.
• Messiah complex.
• Wounded healer syndrome.
• Performative facilitation.
• Power-over dynamics.
• Failing to ask for help.
• Refusal to acknowledge harm or blind spots.
• Claiming mastery prematurely.
• Misappropriating lineages.

3. Reverence

“I walk with awe, not ownership.”

My living code: I approach medicine, lineage, land, and journeyers with sacred regard. I honor the container through ritual, intention, and prayer. I refrain from commodifying or casually offering experiences that are meant to be held in ceremony. I respect the unseen forces that make this work possible.

Reverence is the virtue of sacred regard. It reminds us that we are not in control, we are in relationship with powerful forces: spirit, medicine, land, lineage, and mystery.

Light behaviors, in balance:

• The space is tended as sacred, not just “set up.” The facilitator remains in right relationship with spirits and land.
• The journey is honored as holy, not just “deep.” Integrity with lineages is upheld.
• The guide stays humble before the mystery.

Shadow behaviors, out of balance:

• Treating ceremony as casual, routine, or transactional.
• Using medicine as a tool rather than relating to it as a living intelligence.
• Extracting from lineages, land, or traditions without acknowledgment or offering.
• Skipping prayer, offering, or closure out of convenience or haste.
• Forgetting the unseen and ignoring the spirits, ancestors, and forces holding the work.
• Acting as if the space belongs to the facilitator rather than being stewarded for a greater purpose.
• Burnout from lack of ritual renewal or energetic cleansing.

4. Attunement

“I listen with my whole being.”

My living code: I listen with my full being: emotionally, somatically, and spiritually. I track subtle cues and pause before acting. I tailor my support to each individual rather than applying a one-size-fits-all model. I do not override a journeyer’s experience with interpretations or assumptions.

Attunement is the virtue of sensitive listening. It is the facilitator’s ability to feel, track, and respond to what’s unfolding, verbally, nonverbally, emotionally, energetically, and spiritually.

Light behaviors, in balance:

• The facilitator tracks what’s unfolding across all channels, verbal, somatic, emotional, energetic, spiritual.
• Distress, dissociation, and quiet overwhelm are caught early.
• Support is shaped to the person, not the protocol.
• Silence is read accurately: rest is distinguished from resistance, processing from withdrawal.
• Consent is tracked as a living state, not a signature collected beforehand.
• Journeyers feel met rather than managed.

Shadow behaviors, out of balance:

• Missing cues of distress, dissociation, or overwhelm in a journeyer.
• Applying a one-size-fits-all approach rather than what’s unique to the moment.
• Overriding or interrupting a process because of personal agenda, assumptions, or discomfort.
• Unconsciously flooding the field with your own emotion, energy, or projections.
• Using scripts or techniques out of habit.
• Staying too cognitive or clinical.
• Forcing integration insights prematurely, or offering insights that don’t land.
• Missing the moment when someone’s consent, energy, or trust begins to shift.

5. Discernment

“I act with clarity, not urgency.”

My living code: I act from alignment, not urgency. I clarify my role and scope. I refrain from offering interpretations or interventions that are unsolicited or outside my capacity. I slow down decisions around touch, meaning-making, and integration support. I hold boundaries with integrity.

Discernment is the virtue of inner clarity. It’s what allows a facilitator to act from alignment, not assumption. It ensures choices are grounded, not grasping.

Light behaviors, in balance:

• The facilitator knows what is theirs to hold and what belongs to the journeyer, another practitioner, or the process itself.
• Pause is a practice, not a delay.
• Interventions can be accounted for afterward without defensiveness.
• Meaning-making stays with the journeyer.
• Role and scope stay legible, and dual relationships are named rather than drifted into.
• “No” is available.
• Non-action is recognized as a legitimate choice, not a failure to help.

Shadow behaviors, out of balance:

• Acting from urgency, reactivity, or fear rather than alignment.
• Assigning meaning too quickly.
• Overstepping into territory that’s not yours to enter by imposing interpretations.
• Savior behaviors disguised as helpfulness.
• Blurred roles and harmful dual relationships, becoming friend, therapist, or teacher without clarity.

6. Accountability

“I take responsibility, even when it’s uncomfortable.”

My living code: I take ownership of my impact. If harm or rupture occurs, I name it, seek repair, and stay in relationship. I engage in regular peer consultation, mentorship, or circle-based reflection. I stay open to feedback and do not hide behind spiritual bypass or righteousness.

Accountability is the virtue of owning impact. It’s not just about intentions, it’s about acknowledging what actually happened, how others were affected, and what’s needed next, while maintaining your accountability practices.

Light behaviors, in balance:

• The facilitator stays open to feedback, and repair is prioritized over defense.
• The guide evolves through reflection, not shame.
• Journeyers have space to speak their truth, even if it’s hard to hear.
• Community oversight through peer support, mentorship, and circle-based feedback supports ethical integrity.

Shadow behaviors, out of balance:

• Avoiding responsibility when harm or rupture occurs.
• Deflecting feedback with spiritual bypass (“that was your projection”).
• Operating in isolation without peer reflection or oversight.
• Doubling down on righteousness instead of listening when concerns arise.
• Gaslighting journeyers who express discomfort.
• Not repairing breaches in trust or relationship.
• Unwillingness to name mistakes or blind spots.
• Perpetuating secrecy or silence around misconduct.

7. Sovereignty

“I honor the boundaries and brilliance of every being.”

My living code: I support others’ autonomy without imposing beliefs or directing outcomes. I do not control, coerce, or interpret experiences without consent. I maintain my own energetic boundaries and allow others to navigate theirs. I trust the wisdom of the journeyer’s path to sovereignty and do not step in to rescue or caregive for a participant who has an opportunity to engage in their sovereignty.

Sovereignty is the virtue of honoring autonomy, yours and theirs. It’s the ability to hold space without hijacking it, to trust the journeyer’s innate intelligence, and to stay rooted in your own center while respecting theirs.

Light behaviors, in balance:

• The facilitator stays in their own energy, without collapsing, merging, or controlling.
• The field remains relational, not hierarchical.
• Decisions, including touch, interpretation, pacing, and integration, emerge from choice, not persuasion.
• Both parties are empowered, not dependent.
• The journeyer’s path stays theirs, not subtly shaped by the facilitator’s will.

Shadow behaviors, out of balance:

• Projecting beliefs, values, or outcomes onto the journeyer’s experience.
• Taking over someone’s process or rescuing them from their unfolding.
• Energetic entanglement or unconscious enmeshment.
• Subtle or overt influence over decisions, memories, or meaning-making.
• Codependency masked as care.
• Becoming the “authority” rather than a trusted witness.
• Sacrificing your own center to please, protect, or prove something to the journeyer.

8. Transparency

“I speak and lead from what is true.”

My living code: I clearly communicate my scope of practice, training and approach. I ensure that consent is informed, ongoing, and specific. I speak the truth about what I offer and what I don’t. I share risks, boundaries, and intentions upfront.

Transparency is the virtue that ensures honesty, clarity, and trust. It keeps facilitators grounded in truth about who they are, what they offer, and what they’re not here to do.

Light behaviors, in balance:

• Informed consent is truly informed, verbally, energetically, and in writing.
• Journeyers know what kind of support they’re entering.
• The facilitator owns their limits and stays clear about what they offer.
• Facilitators model truth-telling even when it’s uncomfortable.

Shadow behaviors, out of balance:

• Misrepresentation of scope, training, or experience, such as claiming trauma expertise without embodied understanding.
• Withholding key information about risks, legal implications, or scope of practice and background.

9. Discipline

“I cultivate discipline as my sacred return, an act of devotion, forged by free will.”

My living code: I uphold devotional practices even when it’s hard. I do not show up to ceremony under-resourced or unprepared. I refrain from intervening when stillness is what’s needed. I return again and again to what is right, even when it’s inconvenient.

Discipline is the virtue of sacred return. It’s the act of willfully choosing alignment again and again, especially when it would be easier to collapse, control, or drift. It is both grit and grace, how we parent ourselves into presence.

Light behaviors, in balance:

• The facilitator can stay centered in chaos, not consumed by it.
• Devotional practices are upheld, not just when it’s easy.
• Facilitators return to presence, purpose, and ethics again and again as an act of love.
• Timing, readiness, and boundaries are respected energetically and logistically.

Shadow behaviors, out of balance:

• Scheduling journeys or showing up when under-resourced.
• Avoiding difficult practices, conversations, or preparations.
• Choosing comfort over integrity.
• Choosing convenience over presence.
• Letting ceremony become casual or sloppy through lack of ritual discipline.
• Intervening when stillness is needed.

10. Reciprocity

“I give back to what gives to me.”

My living code: I give back to what gives to me. I acknowledge lineages, land, and labor that support my work. I make offerings: spiritual, financial, and relational. I don’t extract from communities, cultures, or clients. I operate from relational mutuality, not transaction.

Reciprocity is the virtue of balanced exchange. It ensures that facilitators give back to the people, places, and lineages that make their work possible.

Light behaviors, in balance:

• The facilitator is in right relationship with the land, lineage, and labor that make their work possible.
• Offerings are made in the form of prayers, payments, and partnerships.
• The facilitator gives as much as they receive, energetically, financially, communally.
• Generosity and gratitude are embedded in the container.
• The field stays relational, not extractive.

Shadow behaviors, out of balance:

• Extracting from Indigenous lineages or traditions without acknowledgment, offering, or permission.
• Taking from the land or community without giving back.
• Transactional relationships where journeyers are treated as clients or consumers rather than sacred participants.
• Unconscious entitlement (“this is my gift” without honoring where the gift came from).
• Burnout from giving too much without replenishment or support.
• Hoarding resources, knowledge, or access rather than redistributing support.
• Over-reliance on financial exchange without recognizing emotional, cultural, or spiritual forms of reciprocity.

11. Devotion

“I return again and again to what is sacred.”

My living code: I stay rooted in why I do this work. I do not commodify or perform sacred work for image, identity, or status. I honor the medicine through daily integrity, not just in ceremony. I return again and again to the sacred center of this path.

Devotion is the virtue of sacred commitment. It’s the invisible thread that binds facilitator to path, not for image, identity, or success, but from reverent dedication to something greater than self.

Light behaviors, in balance:

• The facilitator’s life is rooted in integrity.
• The sacred is not just honored in ceremony but in preparation, integration, and daily life.
• Guides stay tethered to the why beneath the work, even when it’s hard.
• Personal practices, prayer, ritual, movement, nature, service, stay alive and nourishing.
• The pace is held with soul, not just structure.

Shadow behaviors, out of balance:

• Treating the work as a gig, identity, profession, or trend rather than a calling.
• Pursuing visibility, status, or achievement over service.
• Losing the soul of the work in protocols, performance, or prestige.
• Doing medicine work without tending to personal growth or practice.
• Committing to the work only when it’s convenient or affirming.
• Transactional facilitation that lacks heart or reverence.

What is an annual living code?

An annual living code is an ethics document you rewrite once a year in your own words, rather than one you sign once and file. It carries a date, it is kept alongside its earlier versions, and it is revised while you can still remember why. A code you wrote once and never reread describes a practitioner who no longer exists.

Mine carries the date I wrote it, July 1, 2025. The date is not decoration. It tells a reader when the document was last true, and it tells me when I am next due.

Here is the practice I am actually asking for. It takes one afternoon, once a year.

1. Put it on the calendar and defend it like a booked client. Pick an anniversary you already keep: your birthday, a solstice, the day you sat your first ceremony, the date printed on your certificate. Put next year’s in the calendar before you begin this year’s.
2. Write the 11 in your own words before you reread last year’s. One short paragraph per virtue, first person, present tense, describing what you actually do rather than what you intend to do. This is the whole exercise. Do not skip ahead to the reading. If you have never done this and the blank page stops you, start with the Ethical Biography: free, private, and built to surface the history you carry into a session. It is not the same exercise. It is the ground you write from.
3. Now read last year’s, and mark every difference. A line you could write twelve months ago and cannot honestly write today is not a failure. It is the most useful information the exercise will give you. A line that has not changed in three years is either bedrock, or a place you stopped looking.
4. Go back through the shadow lists and choose two. Not the two that sound worst. The two that were true about the last twelve months. Those are your practice until the next date.
5. Name one change with a date on it, and say it out loud to one peer. “I am cutting my ceremony calendar to two a month by March” is a living code. “I will work on my discipline” is a wish. Choose a peer who will push back rather than agree: a consultation group, a mentor, a supervisor. A virtue named only in private stays a good intention, which is the same reason position 7 exists.
6. Date it, keep the old one, and let it be unfinished. Never overwrite. The difference between this version and the one before it is the only honest record of your development you will ever have.

Then amend it mid-year when something happens: a rupture, a repair, a session that changed how you understand your own scope. That is what living means. Perfection was never the standard here. A commitment to the evolution is. Some years the honest finding is that nothing moved, and knowing that plainly is worth more than a code you never opened.

Adopting and citing this code

This code is free to adopt, adapt, reference, and link in your own practice materials, intake documents, and websites. Take it whole, take three positions, take one virtue, or rewrite the whole thing for your own practice; it is a starting point, not a finished answer. The virtues are free to use the same way, including as a self-assessment you run inside your own consultation group. Cite it as: A Living Code of Ethics for Psychedelic Facilitators, v1.0, Psychedelic Guide Network, 2026, by Ashley Carmen, LMFT. If you reference it, say which version, because this document will change as the field does. And if a position here does not sit right with you, contemplate it and tell us what you find. That reflection is the point of publishing this in the open.

The 11 embodied virtues began as my own personal living code, written in July 2025. It was inspired by the collective agreements of the Psychedelic Guide Network and shaped by the lineages that taught me and the people I have sat with. They are yours to practice, teach, and build on. Where you pass them on, say where they came from.

A code on a wall never kept anyone safe. What keeps people safe is a practitioner who keeps examining what they carry into a session. That examination has a starting point here: the Ethical Biography, a free, private, guided self-reflection built for exactly this. The code is the doorway. The virtues are the room. The Biography is how you walk in.

Changelog

• v1.0, August 2026. First public version, in two halves. Eight positions, offered as a living starting point: touch and consent, scope of practice, legal honesty, dual relationships, transference and power, screening and duty of care, peer accountability, certification and legitimacy. Then the 11 embodied virtues, from my personal living code of July 2025 and revised for this page, each with its light behaviors in balance and its shadow behaviors out of balance, and the annual practice of returning to them in your own words. Every later version records here what changed and why.