1. Objective
This training program equips participants to guide clients through healing processes using substances that induce altered states of consciousness—in both individual and group sessions.
2. Specific qualifications
A successful participant will be able to:
• Guide clients through fundamentally transformative processes
• Be emotionally stable enough to be exposed to very intense emotions during interactions with clients
• Remain centered while being fully present for the client
• Recognize and experience a state of openness of the heart during the process
• Gain a deeper understanding of different states of consciousness and of different ways for inducing non-ordinary states of consciousness
• Acquire knowledge of the specific effects of the different types of substance commonly used in this field
• Plan, structure and facilitate sessions using these substances
• Be of service
• Distinguish between the processes that client(s) experience and the therapist’s own ones
• Work with transference and countertransference, projection and projective identification
• Utilize various elements supporting deep trance healing processes such as: music, singing, incense, light, touch, words, prayer
• Understand a shamanic and a psychotherapeutic approach, the differences between them, and possible combinations
• Place this work within a broader psychological context: psychotraumatology, psychotherapy, and various healing approaches
• Apply the knowledge and skills acquired in this process with clients even when not working with consciousness-expanding substances
• Work with a deepened understanding of human interaction
• Develop an individual approach in this work and integrate various tools
3. Contents
3.1. Legal aspects
Legal framework and guidelines.
3.2. Neurochemistry of psychoactive substances
A brief synopsis on the brain chemistry and how psychoactive substances work.
3.3. Pharmacology of different types of substances
Discussion of the properties of the different substances commonly used in this context. Possible drug combinations. Unhealthy combinations. Medical risks. Selecting the right substance.
3.4. Influence of substance, dosage, set and setting
3.5. Ethics
The ethics of caring and how caregivers should protect themselves to avoid overstepping the client’s boundaries.
3.6. Elements of the setting
Place, environment, time, light and darkness, smell, music, invocations, prayers, words and language, and much more.
Viewed in a broader context: Substance-assisted therapy as a form of therapy in and by itself or as a complementary tool within a more comprehensive psychotherapeutic approach.
Various possible settings will be used and discussed.
3.7. Music
The potential effects of music. Playing instruments, singing, music playback via electronic devices. How to select music. The effect of silence.
3.8. Interventions
Motivation for interventions. How much, when and in which way?
3.9. The client
Preparation, intentions, follow-up care, collaboration with psychotherapists.
3.10. Shamanic versus psychotherapeutic approaches
Choice of method and possible combinations.
3.11. Psychotraumatology
The training provides a comprehensive understanding of trauma and the processes that occur in traumatic situations on various levels (body, mind and soul). It includes an introduction to Porges’ Polyvagal Theory and the work of Levine. We will discuss how to recognize trauma symptoms and process traumatic experiences, and examine the difference between shock and trauma, as well as shock and needs shock. We will also address individual trauma and intergenerational trauma.
Furthermore, we examine the following typical traumatic experiences in detail:
• Vanished twin syndrome
• Sexual abuse or rape
• Emotional neglect
• Physical violence
• Surgery
• Accident
• Abortion and survived attempted abortion
• Poisoning during pregnancy
• Cesarian birth and birth with use of vacuum extractor or forceps
• Incubator
Should participants be confronted with other types of trauma, we will, of course, address them appropriately and teach how to cope with them.
3.12. Prenatal and perinatal traumatology
We explore Stanislav Grof’s BPM (Basic Perinatal Matrices) and the stages of prenatal development described by Wiliam Emerson. Participants will learn how to work with William Emerson’s prenatal therapy, which extends Grof’s approach into the time before conception.
3.13. Family constellation and the influence of the ancestors
We also explore the influence of family systems, the role of ancestors in indigenous cultures and a novel western understanding of the influence of ancestors found with the help of constellation work. The function of representation. Systemic rules. Specific constellation roles such as triangulation, rescuer, parentification.
3.14. The victim triangle
The roles of victim, perpetrator, and rescuer.
3.15. Systemic perspective
Understanding that every behaviour makes perfect sense within a specific context, helps in identifying that context. When it is found, this is always a significant healing process. The training provides necessary and helpful questions to guide clients in this search.
3.16. Past lives
We look at past lives and their influence on our present life.
3.17. Working with the physical and energetic body
We examine how to address tension and physical pain, the relation of their intensification and resolution, and the relationship between physical pain or tension and emotions.
3.18. Protection
We explore how we can sense and understand the process the client is going through, perhaps even participate in it, and how we can deal with undesirable consequences that arise from absorbing parts of the process from the client. This includes a discussion of maintaining distance from the client and the concept of closeness, particularly in light of the common Western dogma of therapeutic distance. We also consider shamanic protection.
3.19. Ritual and shamanic technology (indigenous technology)
An introduction to ritual as the language of the soul is given. This includes an exploration of ritual suspense and the “ritual arc”. The participants will be encouraged to create their own shamanic instruments and use them in their work.
If desired, an optional workshop can be offered for interested participants, in which we will create shamanic instruments together, such as a drum or protective tools. This workshop is not part oft the training as outlined here, as it requires additional time. Not every participant may want or need it. However, it can be offered as a possible supplement to the course.
3.20. Spiritual mapping
This aspect addresses the question of how we can navigate and understand unfamiliar areas of ourselves and the client, and to understand which realms a client might enter during a spiritual experience.
3.21. Integration
We explore the meaning and purpose of integration during and after a session. We examine various elements and tools to facilitate integration.
These are the topics and themes planed for the training course. Participants and trainers will jointly decide on the depth with which each topic is covered, tailored to the interests and needs of the group.
4. General information
The training will follow a modular design as participants come from different countries.
There will be seven modules, spread over three years.
Each module covers one or more topics, follows a similar structure, and lasts seven days. The first day begins at 6.00 p.m. All participants are invited to arrive earlier to settle in and rest. All modules end on the seventh day no later than 5.00 p.m. The time may be adjusted depending on transportation options.
During each module, two sessions take place in which participants gain experience with different types of substances.
After completing all modules, the training continues with assisting clients in sessions guided and supervised by Manuel Aicher and Sabine Schulte. Each participant completes at least five sessions. This supervised assistance is designed to help participants to gain practical experience. A debriefing takes place after each session. The number of assistance sessions will be agreed upon individually between the participants and the trainers. A prerequisite for completing the training is sufficient self-confidence and the necessary maturity to begin working independently in accordance with the qualifications mentioned above. Some participants are ready after three sessions, while others need significantly more. All assistance sessions need to be completed no later than 5 years after the concluding training module.
All participants need to be aware and accept that the training is based on an intimately connected and closed group. This means that once the training begins, no new participants can join, and each group member must commit to participation from the outset to the end. Of course, there are always reasons to give up commitments. However, we ask that any reasons for discontinuing participation and leaving the group be serious and substantial.
The group’s size will be eight to twelve persons.
5. Tools
Modern European and North American traditions typically limit the learning process to ex cathedra instruction, which primarily targets the intellect, and to practical guidance and work experience. In therapeutic contexts, self-experience is also required. The training draws on all these aspects of learning.
However, there is another mode of learning, observed in various indigenous cultures, that Westerners often struggle to understand and to accept: the gathering of experience through participation in rituals. This is particularily true of shamanic traditions: participants will experience that there is a transfer of knowledge which bypasses the transmission of intellectual knowledge. The training incorporates this approach: that in the spiritual world there are teachers one can turn to who can pass on their knowledge, if all is well prepared. Such knowledge does not primarily address the content of learning but the way it flows into you. The training employs a number of ritual processes. This raises the general question of how one can open oneself sufficiently to access this knowledge, which is present there anyway. That is why it is important to learn how to invite the guides to assist you. In our culture, the primary task is to resolve the mental blocks that have built up in an intellectually oriented environment. As far as possible, this learning process, based on rituals, will also part of the training.
5.1. Practical exercises
Each module includes two sessions in practical use of substances. In particular there are two objectives:
1. To create opportunities for self-experience and for healing one’s own wounds – one of the most important resources to achieve this are the altered states of consciousness that are the focus of this training. In these sessions, participants learn how the healing process works and are enabled to guide others through a similar experience: You know best what you have experienced and gone through yourself!
2. Participants are invited to experiment with the trainers’ suggestions while in this state of consciousness: They might work, evaluate and test how they can apply these suggestions and insights from the training to validate their effectiveness for their own work or as their own methods and thus integrating the suggestions. (See also section 5.3 below.)
Each participant writes proceedings of each session. This will be send to the trainers and all other participants. Between the modules, the trainers will provide questions and offer feedback to deepen understanding and highlight possibilities for how to work with such sessions and what the integration might look like.
5.2. Alchemical divination
Ralph Metzner coined this term, which describes forms of controlled and guided meditations. There will be a number of sessions in which participants are guided along the most fulfilling paths that the universe offers our unconsciousness. Participants may embark on these paths with or without the use of substances.
5.3. Teaching
The training includes lectures. Each module allows time for questions and discussion. The training is structured in such a way that it makes no claim to absolute truth. The trainers offer inputs that each participant is encouraged to work on during will be asked to work on during the sessions and to validate the insights for themselves. In doing so, participants are encouraged to seek solutions that best suit them. The training does not teach a formal working method. Instead, participants are encouraged to develop their deeply personal path to healing, deeply rooted in their own hearts. This cannot be achieved within the conventional framework of Western teaching. It requires openness, understanding with all senses, adaptability, and a profound knowledge and experience of various approaches and teaching traditions. This should lead to and grow into an intimate and personal relationship with one’s clients as one is finding their own path of practice. Following a teacher should not be a matter of belief or copying, but rather guided explorations and insights into one’s own experiences, leading to a more complex and comprehensive understanding and, ultimately, to ancient wisdom.
5.4. Meditation
Guided meditation or body meditation (e. g. Kundalini meditation according to Osho) are components of the training.
5.5. Council
This is a special form of communicating within a group, originating in indigenous cultures of North America. It helps to slow the pace and thus promote the expression of the soul rather than the intellect.
5.6. Threshold walks
This tool, drawn from the context of vision quests, induces a light trance and helps deepen one’s perception of nature, using it as a mirror and discovering it as a source of spiritual power and energy. It enables participants to build new relationships with the elements of nature. This also results in a wider circle of communication partners.
5.7. Working in groups
We may choose to discuss or work on specific topics in smaller groups.
5.8. Buddies
Throughout the training, two participants will form a tandem, supporting each other and integrating the sessions and the material learned. There are no fixed rules regarding how this should be, but contact between the two buddies is encouraged, as experience has shown that this is a very supportive element of the training.
5.9. Constellation work
This very helpful instrument is not strictly part of the training program. However, participants receive an introduction to how constellation work functions and its general benefit for therapeutic work. We will use it as a useful tool and offer the opportunity to become familiar with this method in practice.
5.10. Group feedback
Group meetings are held in which participants give feedback on an individual member. This first conveys to participants how they are perceived by the other group members. This mirroring of perceptions is a rare and valuable experience. Secondly, this will be a practical introduction into the role of the therapist, particularly how to confront clients with previously unknown perceptions of themselves. This will be supervised by the trainers.
5.11. Homework
There will be some homework (not all that much): Reading literature, “chewing on” or contemplating important topics and questions, and writing down one’s own thoughts on them. Some assignments will involve the independent application of specific tools for personal development.
5.12. Opportunities for assisting in the work with clients
In addition to participating in the modules, a period of assisting is part of the training (including preparation and follow-up). This experience helps participants understand the dimensions of therapeutic work without bearing full responsibility.
5.13. Handicrafts
There will be an opportunity to produce objects which can support the work with clients. This will be offered in a separate workshop on shamanic tools.
5.14. Practical tools
In each module, a helpful tool for this work is introduced, be it resourcing, integration or other support. Participants are encouraged to use and try out this tool with with their buddies until the next module.
15. (Love)
Is it a tool?
6. Participation requirements
Participants must be in good physical condition and are required to inform the trainers of any relevant health problems, especially heart conditions, before the start of the training. Ongoing psychotherapy is not a disqualifying factor. However, the trainers must be informed about such treatment and the general reasons for it. Details are not required.
In particular, psychotic or borderline tendencies can impair the practical work process. Any symptoms of this nature, as well as any psychiatric treatment, must be discussed with the trainers.
Participants need to be in a position but also willing to stop taking psychopharmacological medication for up to three weeks before each module begins. Further details will be discussed between trainers and participants.
Since participants need to know what they will be trained in, only those who have completed at least one session of substance-assisted therapy with at least one of the trainers will be admitted to the training. For those who do not meet this requirement, the trainers will offer one five-day retreat at the training location.
Unit 0 February 15th to 19th, 2027
7. Language
If there are enough German-speaking participants, the course will be held in German. Otherwise, it will be held in English. This means that sessions and group communication will take place in English. German-speaking participants may use German in situations when the group is not involved.
8. Time
Unit 1 May 25th to 31th, 2027
Unit 2 October 24th to 30th, 2027
Unit 3 March 14th to 20th , 2028
Unit 4 June 13th to 19th, 2028
Unit 5 October 10th to 16th, 2028
Unit 6 March 13th to 19th, 2029
Unit 7 June 12th to 18th, 2029
We devote each unit to one or more specific topics. The topics will be selected during the preparatory phase.
9. Location
The training will take place in southern Portugal. Details will be provided as soon as a participant has been admitted to the program.
The best way to get there from a far distance is via Faro Airport. From there, taxis can be taken for 80 euros or shared with other participants, bringing the cost down to 40 euros.
Accommodation in rooms with two to four beds.
10. Cost
10.1. Expense
The fee for each module is
• 1500 – 1900 euros, depending on individual financial circumstances. The fee covers training and material costs.
• An additional 700 euros is allocated for (largely organic) meals, accommodation (including bed linens and towels), and substances.
Please note that it is advisable to budget approximately 300 to 500 euros for literature or other required materials.
The cost for assisting in a session will be
For 1 session:
• 120 to 200 euros, depending on financial means, for supervision and substances used
• 80 euros for meals and accommodation
For 2 sessions (5 days):
• 200 to 400 euros, depending on financial means, for supervision and substances used
• 450 euros for meals and accommodation
For 2 sessions (7 days):
• 350 to 500 euros, depending on financial means, for supervision and substances used
• 520 euros for meals and accommodation
The total cost (training, meals and accommodation) for all modules (excluding assistances) is at least 15’700 euros (excluding travel expences).
10.2. Financial difficulties
If you feel that you want to participate but are lacking the necessary funds, please contact the trainers. We will find a solution. We understand that this might put you into an uncomfortable situation, bringing with it feelings of shame and a sense of restricted independence. However, this topic will inevitably come up during the course anyway! It offers an initial opportunity for practice. And this will, of course, be treated confidentially.
10.3. Payments
Participation in the training requires a deposit of 5000 Euro as a retainer, payable not later than 120 days before the start of the first module. The deposit will be credited against the final payments for the last modules of the programme, counting from the last one backwards. Payment of the deposit guarantees your place in the training.
We kindly request that each session, as well as the remaining balance for the final module, be paid before the start of each module. The same applies to assistance sessions.
10.4. Cancellation policy
For cancellations up to 90 days before the start of the first module, 2000 euros will be refunded. For cancellations up to 60 days before the start of the first module, 1000 euros will be refunded. No refunds will be issued for cancellations made 30 days or less before the start of the first module. If the vacated spot is filled by another participant, 2000 euros will be refunded.
The minimum number of participants is eight. If fewer participants register or if the trainer(s) are unable to conduct the training for health or other (certainly important) reasons, the deposit and all payments already made will be fully refunded. Payments for modules already completed or other services already rendered will not be refunded. Under no circumstances will the trainers reimburse participants more than the payments already made for the training.
11. Certification
Every participant who has successfully completed the training program (all modules and the assistances), will receive a certificate of participation with a detailed list of all relevant topics and acquired skills.
12. Trainers
Manuel Aicher (www.manuel-aicher.com)
Trained by Friederike Meckel-Fischer, Ralph Metzner, William Emerson, Matthias Varga von Kibéd, and others. Initiated into West African shamanic work and the Bwiti tradition by Bernadette Rebienot (Gabun). 30 Years of experience in the field of substance-assisted therapy.
Sabine Schulte
Gestalt therapist. Orientation analyst, pysychoimaginative trauma therapist, Somatic Experiencing and Soma Embodiment therapist. 22 years as a training instructor at the Institute for Humanistic Psychology (Institut für Humanistische Psychologie) in Eschweiler, more than 15 years of experience in the field of substance-assisted therapy.
External experts may be invited to contribute to specific topics. These individuals will join the group for a limited time (half a day or a day) only.
13. Confidentiality
Confidentiality is an essential prerequisite of the entire training and beyond. You are asked not to talk to anyone about any other participant of the training course without his consent.
14. Questions and registration
For questions or to register for this training, please contact:
Institute for Substance-Assisted Therapy, Rotis 7, 88299 Leutkirch, Germany
phone +49 7591 908 3001, e-mail: institute@substanzunterstuetzte-therapie.org
The registration deadline is January 31st, 2027. Reservations are booked in the order of the receipt of the registration. Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Since the training aims to get more and more trained people into practice, if there are more applicants than available places, priority may be given to those who already know that they will use the work with clients, if there will be more interest than place.
If you want to register or have any questions, click here.