Expected Clinical
Behavior

What is the practitioner actually expected to do before, during, and after a psychedelic session? Role labels and professional titles cannot answer that question on their own. Protocols may ask practitioners to prepare participants, establish rapport, monitor safety, offer reassurance, respond to distress, support emotional processing, or assist with integration. Other models deliberately restrict intervention, emphasizing non-directiveness and avoiding interpretation, advice, or an explicit intention to treat. Even an apparently minimal-support role can therefore contain highly specific expectations about when to speak, when to remain silent, and how to respond when a participant needs help.

Recent work makes this distinction especially visible. In one psilocybin model, most of the dosing session was spent without speech, yet support providers still offered presence, availability, validation, and reassurance when needed. Other authors have argued that psychological support should be defined through observable practitioner behaviors rather than broad treatment labels. The relevant question is therefore not simply whether a protocol is called therapy, support, or monitoring, but what actions the practitioner is actually instructed to perform — and to avoid. The ROLES Study asks: what clinical behavior is prescribed for each professional role? We map expected actions across preparation, dosing, and follow-up, including the degree of directiveness, relational engagement, therapeutic intervention, safety monitoring, and response to psychological distress.