Psychedelics in Social Work: Opportunities and Challenges

Research demonstrating the therapeutic potential of psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) to treat a variety of mental health conditions has skyrocketed in recent years. Indeed, the FDA is expected to approve the medical use of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD in August 2024 with approval of psilocybin not far behind and states across the country have seen a steady increase in legislation related to increasing access to psychedelics over the past several years: from 5 in 2019 to 36 in 2022. These developments on the scientific and policy fronts have outstripped the existing clinical infrastructure's ability to respond to the increased use of psychedelics in the population and scholars are predicting a critical shortage of mental health providers trained in both harm-reduction models and PAT when demand for these services increases. Given these developments, mental health researchers, practitioners, and policy makers must think critically about how to best bring these promising new treatments into routine practice settings so that those most in need can access these treatments in a timely, affordable, and safe manner. Training the social work workforce in psychedelic science and clinical approaches to PAT is a critical step in responding to these developments. Social workers provide the majority of mental health services in the country and are strengths based, client centered, and committed to working with some of the most marginalized and vulnerable communities who may have limited access to psychedelic medicines and the PAT model. Additionally, social work offers diverse representation in the workforce, which is an unmet need of the scientific psychedelic community who has been unable to sufficiently consider racial, ethnic, and sexual identity factors that may influence availability, acceptability, or efficacy of PAT for these communities. Finally, social workers bring an anti-racist, anti-oppressive, inclusive lens to mental health treatment are a more affordable option than psychologists and psychiatrists, increasing the potential to scale PAT. Despite all the reasons why social workers should be more involved with the delivery of PAT, there are challenges. Some of the challenges social workers face in delivering PAT include social worker lack of knowledge, stigma/drug classification of psychedelics, and cost/accessibility of treatment and training certification. The goal of the roundtable is to facilitate a discussion on the reasons social workers should be involved in the psychedelic renaissance as clinicians, researchers, advocates, and educators. This roundtable will begin with a review of the state of psychedelics as an evidence-based treatment and the role that social workers play as clinicians delivering PAT, as researchers, and as advocates. Two presenters will focus on the delivery of PAT and the clinical skills necessary to do this work with special attention to working with oppressed and marginalized communities. Two additional presenters will discuss advocacy and implementation efforts to increase access and affordability of both PAT services and PAT training for social workers. Social workers are poised to play an important role in referring, coordinating, and delivering PAT and their training and education on these novel interventions is imperative for their ethical participation in this new field.