CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, AND PEDAGOGY article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Psychology for Clinical Settings
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1637887
Psychedelic Training Program Development: Lessons from the Evolution of the EMBARK Program
Provisionally accepted
- 1Independent Consultant, New York, NY, United States
- 2Independent consultant, Overland Park, KS, United States
- 3Cybin Inc, Toronto, Canada
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The field of psychedelic medicine is currently developing evidence-based standards and core competencies for training providers of psychedelic treatments. This article contributes to this effort by describing the iterative development of EMBARK training program, which has been developed by Cybin, Inc. for use in training session monitors for clinical trials of psychedelic treatments. The EMBARK training program has been used in two successfully completed clinical trials, as well as three ongoing trials. This article provides details about each of the three phases of the EMBARK training program’s development, including their core components, what worked well, lessons learned, and the rationale for any changes made. Innovations included in EMBARKCT, the most recent iteration of the training used in Cybin’s Phase 3 trials, are discussed, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI) with expert human oversight to identify the need for additional session monitor support and training. Recommendations and implications for the field are discussed.
Keywords: Author contributions Conceptualization: W.B., A.K., Writing -Original Draft: W.B., Writing -Review & Editing: W.B., M.F., C.S., A.I., A.K., Supervision: A.K., Project Administration: A.K Psychedelic-assisted therapy, psychedelic medicine, psychedelic treatments, training program development, evidence-based training approaches, EMBARK model of psychedelic treatment
Received: 29 May 2025; Accepted: 01 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Brennan, Field, Schon, Inamdar and Kelman. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: William Brennan, Independent Consultant, New York, NY, United States
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