VIDEO: Nurses well-suited to deliver psychedelic-assisted therapy

In a video interview, Andrew Penn, RN, MS, NP, associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing, discussed his session from the American Psychiatric Nurses Association Annual Conference on why nurses are well-suited to deliver psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to psychiatric patients.

“I would say the skills and sensibilities that are needed by psychedelic therapists are very similar to those skills that nurses already have — particularly the skills that are relevant to partnering with a patient to create their own healing, to holding space for people when they are in emotional and physical distress [and] that we allow for whatever emerges to be okay,” Penn told Healio.

In his session, Penn discussed a paper he co-wrote on how the way nurses care for patients can inform psychedelic therapy because this type of therapy focuses on “helping the patient heal themselves.” Trust also plays a major role, according to Penn.

“You can’t do deep therapeutic work unless you trust the person that you’re working with. People tend to trust nurses and we’re worthy of that trust,” he said. “I think that is an essential first component to building a therapeutic relationship with somebody and I think that nurses know how to establish and maintain that trust through their own behavior and demeanor with patients. So, it’s not that much of a stretch to see how nurses would be really good at this.”