Occupational
Background

Who is sitting with the patient — a psychologist, psychiatrist, nurse, social worker, counsellor, or someone from an entirely different profession? Psychedelic treatments are delivered by practitioners from remarkably diverse professional backgrounds. Yet the role assigned to someone tells us surprisingly little about the expertise they bring into the room. Across clinical studies, psychologists and psychiatrists are common, but nurses, physicians, social workers, counsellors, students, and other professionals have also provided psychological support or facilitation.

These professions do not begin psychedelic-specific training from the same starting point. A nurse may bring extensive experience in medical care, safety, observation, and communication, whereas a psychotherapist may have years of training in therapeutic relationships, emotional processing, and psychological intervention. Neither background automatically makes someone better suited to psychedelic care, but their existing competencies — and therefore their training needs — may differ substantially. This distinction becomes important when apparently similar roles require very different forms of judgement or intervention. The ROLES Study therefore asks a second fundamental question: what professional background does the person occupying the role actually have? We map practitioners’ pre-existing qualifications and examine how these relate to the labels they receive, the training they undergo, the work they are expected to perform, and the responsibilities they carry.