Psychedelics have re-emerged in clinical psychotherapy, sparking growing scientific interest in their mechanisms and therapeutic potential. By integrating neuroscience and psychotherapy research, scientists have explored how psychedelic substances influence mental health. Several models suggest that the brain’s constant predictions about the world shape our construction of reality—and that these predictions can be disrupted through psychedelics (Carhart-Harris & Friston, 2019). The therapeutic effects of psychedelics show strong parallels to the mechanisms of psychotherapy, particularly behavioral and third-wave approaches (Wolff et al., 2022), highlighting psychedelic-assisted therapy as a legitimate form of psychotherapy (Gründer et al., 2024). Drawing on the trainers’ clinical practice and insights from research in the fields of Psychedelic Neuroscience and Contextual Behavioral Science, this workshop aims to provide an overview of the psychological mechanisms of psychedelics, viewed through the lens of the predictive processing framework (Clark, 2023). The session will explore essential implications for how we understand the mind, perception, the construction of reality, and therapeutic change. Participants will have the chance to reflect on the connection between psychedelic-assisted therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and to explore this connection either from a professional perspective or from a personal angle. Lastly, since psychedelics are such strong compounds, a critical discussion will take place in order to provide some nuance to the hype psychedelic-assisted therapy is these days.

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Learning goals:

• Participants will understand how the predicting brain constantly creates illusions.

• Participants can analyze different states of consciousness through the lens of the predicting brain and the REBUS model.

• Participants will reflect on the clinical implications of this perspective.

• Participants will evaluate the effectiveness of combining Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) through case examples and a supervision role-play.

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What to expect?

• Psychological view, not going too deep into the mechanisms on a chemical basis 

• Accompanied by poetry

• Resulting into easy to grasp clinical implications

• Own experience in the clinical setting 

• The role of perception in the predicting brain (bottom-up) 

• Role of priors and models, predictions (top-down) 

• Change the way we think about perceptions in general

• We all hold different beliefs, and perceptions (based on learning, culture, etc.) 

• Examples of models: blobs, sounds, face!

• Relaxation of the top-down mechanism  implications in different contexts, implications for therapy   connection to ACT