Screening first
A conversation about your history, your medication and your complaints. In trials this is an exclusion procedure: a share of applicants does not get through it.
Explained
Psychedelic therapy in the Netherlands
Widely searched for, and not quite what most people assume. What exists here, what does not, and why we do not call our work therapy.
The honest answer first: psychedelic therapy does not exist in the Netherlands as a treatment. There is no registered psilocybin medicine, no doctor who can prescribe one and no insurer who reimburses it.
That matters, because most people searching for this are looking for exactly that: a treatment. Often because the conventional route has run out. It would be easy to say yes to that question. It would also be selling something under a name that does not fit.
What does exist is two things: research in clinical settings, and legally guided ceremonies like ours. Those two resemble each other and are not the same.
What psilocybin therapy looks like in the research
The structure that recurs in almost every study. The substance is not the treatment; the support around it is.
Preparatory sessions
One or more conversations with the people who will be present on the day, so that you know them before anything begins.
The dosing session
A measured dose in a prepared room, with two facilitators who stay for the whole session. Usually lying down, with music and eyeshades.
Integration afterwards
Conversations in the weeks that follow about what happened. In the research this part counts for as much as the session itself.
If you are searching for this near Amsterdam
Amsterdam has no psilocybin therapy, because the Netherlands has none. What the city does have is shops selling truffles over the counter, and a handful of providers running guided ceremonies in the surrounding area.
If a provider near Amsterdam advertises psilocybin therapy or psychedelic therapy, they are using a word that does not describe what they are offering. That is worth noticing before you book, because the same looseness tends to show up in how carefully they screen.
We are in Vijfhuizen, roughly twenty minutes from Amsterdam and thirteen from Schiphol. What is legal and what is not is set out under magic mushrooms in Amsterdam.
What we do instead
We guide truffle ceremonies, and have done since 2018. A day starts with a telephone intake covering your health, your medication and your reasons, and in which we sometimes say no. On the day you lie in a room with beds, someone is with you throughout, and it closes with a reflection and a shared meal. About three weeks later we call you back.
That resembles the structure above, and not by accident. The difference is not the form but the claim. We will not tell you beforehand what you will get out of it, and a ceremony does not replace medical care. Keep discussing your complaints with your doctor, and never stop medication on your own.
How a day runs is set out under the psilocybin ceremony, who we cannot guide under safety and eligibility, and what it costs under pricing.
Looking for treatment?
Then start with your doctor at home. That sounds like a brush off and it is not: for a psychiatric condition there is a route, and we are not it. If you are travelling here specifically because that route has failed you, say so during the intake call. It changes what we need to discuss, and occasionally it changes our answer.
Frequently asked questions
Is psychedelic therapy legal in the Netherlands?
Psilocybin truffles are legal to buy and use here, and guiding a ceremony is not prohibited. But legally available is not the same as an approved treatment. There is no registered psilocybin medicine in the Netherlands, no doctor who can prescribe it and no insurer who reimburses it. Psychedelic therapy as a treatment does not exist here outside research.
Can I get psilocybin therapy in Amsterdam?
Not as a medical treatment, from anyone. What you can do in and around Amsterdam is a legally guided truffle ceremony. If a provider near Amsterdam advertises psilocybin therapy, they are using a word that does not describe what is on offer. We are twenty minutes outside the city and we call our work a ceremony for that reason.
What is the difference between a ceremony and therapy?
Less in the form than you would think: both involve preparation, a guided session and aftercare. The difference is in what gets claimed. A treatment promises an outcome and sits under medical supervision. A ceremony does not. We will not tell you beforehand what you will get out of it, because we do not know.
Where does the research stand?
Most of it looks at depression that has not responded to usual treatment, and beyond that at anxiety in terminal illness, at addiction and at obsessive compulsive disorder. Some of those results are encouraging. But it is a limited number of studies with relatively small groups, carried out under conditions that have little to do with taking truffles on your own: screened participants, a measured dose, two trained facilitators and weeks of follow-up.
I am being treated for depression. Can I take part?
That depends and we discuss it first. We do not guide a ceremony with bipolar disorder, during pregnancy or breastfeeding, or while taking MAO inhibitors or lithium. With psychosis or schizophrenia, including in the immediate family, we do not simply go along with it. And keep discussing your complaints with your doctor; never stop medication on your own.
Do you offer MDMA therapy or ketamine therapy?
No. We work only with legal psilocybin truffles. If you are looking for another substance, we are not the right address, and in the Netherlands those are not legally available outside a clinical trial either.
Still want to talk it through?
Every participant has a telephone intake first, in English, so there is room for your questions before you decide anything.