Welcome to issue #15 of The Ethical Trip! This fortnight:

For all this, plus an idiosyncratic roundup of recent research and alleged humour, read on!

Huge thanks to everyone supporting this work via buy me a coffee cactus. Also massive amounts of gratitude (and maybe a little concern) to the person who bought one of my unfeasibly cursed t-shirts.

Valentic (2025) investigates the phenomenology of people making major life decisions after psychedelic experiences.

Bender et al (2025) looks at provider perspectives on challenges in treatment during psychedelic therapy. This paper, IMO, makes important contribution to how common challenges intense (but normally temporary) dysphoria or client disappointment with treatment outcomes are.

Bublitz (2025) gives us an extremely interesting paper, which investigates the epistemic implications of the REBUS (Relaxed Beliefs Under Psychedelics/Anarchic Brain) model and introduces the idea of epistemic harm-reduction.

Finally, Sotillos (2025) wrote such a good review of Psychedelic Capitalism that I will probably buy myself a copy.

Earlier this year, Medibank, Australia’s largest private health insurer, announced a pilot scheme where they’d dedicated $10 million to providing coverage for MDMA assisted therapy, in partnership with Emyria, to be provided via their Empax Centre.

This came to my attention again more recently when Optimi Health $OPTHF ( ▼ 8.78% ) got a little over-excited with their public communications over a one-off purchase of their product.

Given that insurance coverage for mental health in Australia is notoriously lacklustre, I was curious about how this would work and what the out-of-pocket costs to people seeking this treatment under this pilot program would be? No one seemed to be talking specifics, if the scheme was mentioned at all.

In order to get some clarification, I contacted Emyria and Medibank. The insurer didn’t get back to me, but Michael Winlo, CEO of Emyria did. His reply email and our subsequent chat gave me some answers that I genuinely didn’t expect.

Get the full story here: Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy and Health Insurance in Australia

Lots more good stuff below, but only for subscribers!

Remember, way back in 2021, when Compass Pathways tried to patent the use of soft furnishings in psilocybin-assisted therapy?

Turns out, despite, reporting to the contrary from Porta Sophia, that soft furniture, along with headphones, eye-masks and playlists are all still mentioned in the currently pending patent application US20250302851A1. So far as I can tell, this only applies to their use in combination with Compass’s already patented Polymorph A formulation.

On this basis (and just to be clear: I am not a lawyer and this isn’t legal advice) I don’t think anyone doing psilocybin-assisted therapy with a couch in the room needs to panic, even if the patent is eventually granted.

I’ve noted a few more details here in this short post, but it’s a work in progress. Expect more on this in coming issues.

In the meantime, I know there are a few Compass Pathways subscribers here. If I’ve got this wrong, or you’d like to add context, my inbox is open (just hit reply.)

And, just in case anyone wants to commemorate this surreal crossover between therapeutic décor and IP law, I made a shirt.

Testimonials are a stock part of online marketing. This isn’t a huge surprise, as ‘social proof’ where previous clients/consumers etc. give there opinion on a product or service can have significant influence over people’s decisions to buy.

And if your clients had a good experience and want to help by voluntarily saying so in writing or on camera, who are you to stop them?

In psychedelics, there are, as always, complications. Ethical facilitators and guides know that the morning after an experience isn’t necessarily when people are at their most objective (not that this stops everyone.)

But when the claims of a business (whether ceremonial or clinical) aren’t just that they can provide a good environment and diligent sitters, but that they can facilitate healing or recovery from depression or PTSD, it becomes a lot more serious. A former client may feel the best they have in years. But how long does this last? Will they say the same thing with 6 or 12 months of hindsight?

Freedom from coercion or incentive are often talked about in terms of ethical practice around testimonials. And it’s absolutely necessary to be mindful of power relations, so that people don’t feel obligated or pressured to give a good review. But time is itself important, to give people the change to digest & integrate their experience.

For a longer discussion of this, check out Dr Sandra Dreisbach and myself discussing this topic here:

Want to help upgrade my budget from ‘Shien’ to ‘IzWoz’? Support me via Buy Me a Coffee.

Less than a month until EGA Garden States: Regeneration! Check the website for the full list of lectures, presentations, panels, workshops and market & food stalls (and, you know, to buy tickets.) Be there!

As any man practising sacred retention to optimise his ability to generate value for shareholders will tell you, holding in one kind of bodily fluid is only possible if you can energetically purge another.

Here at Jungian Sperm Energy, we’ve discovered the efficacy of Kambo/Sapo for making room for that extra dollop of sacred spiritual power.

It’s not ideal, though. Kambo practitioners cand be hard to find, and sessions difficult to fit in around 20-hour work days. More importantly, kambo as a service (kaas) is not commercially scalable, with carbon-based shamans limited to who they can actually see in person (where legal.)

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Jungian Sperm Energy: If it’s worth doing, it’s worth commercialising.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! And yes, Consultancy Corner will be back next time - I just spent too long on other stories this week.

As always, all feedback and suggestions are welcome, and I promise* to not write to your office so many times that your staff passive-aggressively preface reply letters by thanking me for my ‘continuing correspondence’.

*Unless you’re Chris Minns.

PS:

JD Vance walks into a La-Z-Boy store while high on mushrooms. No sooner has he sat down than an IP lawyer serves him with papers, suing him for infringing a Compass Pathways patent. ‘What the hell,’ Vance exclaims, ‘I’m not even on Polymorph A. I’m just lonely and this was closer than the nearest SeaWorld.’

‘Ah balls,’ says the lawyer, ‘I got here early and now I’m in the wrong joke!’

‘Joke?” says Vance, ‘Nah man, you’re in a shaggy dog story, there’s no point to any of this.’

Written on Worimi lands. Sovereignty was never ceded.

Icon by Freepik from Flaticon