Start with the patterns many wounded healers know well: Parentified at home, helpers at work; old burdens resurface. We overfunction, detach, control, or rescue to manage our insecurities and the weight of responsibility. Beneath it sits guilt and shame of not reaching our patients in the ways we would like. Further down, our own original pains are hidden behind the role of a helper.
This upcoming two-part online training puts those themes on screen. A series of long, evocative video clips from an unfiltered MDMA-assisted therapy case of a wounded healer showcase a range of clinical phenomena and therapeutic attitudes and techniques in MDMA-assisted therapy. They also trigger self-reflection, sharpen interoceptive tracking, and bring you closer to your own patterns and preferences as a therapist.
Ready to deepen your skills and support cutting-edge research? Sign up for the two-part live training now!
Prior cohorts rated the format 4.84/5 across more than 260 reviews. It includes some basic learning on how to prepare, navigate, facilitate, and integrate MDMA-catalyzed states. What sets it apart is the wealth of authentic clinical footage and therapist-centered inquiry into wounded-healer dynamics. Importantly, by enrolling in this training, you also help fund the development of a pioneering protocol for Empathogen-Assisted Therapist Development (EATD).
What is empathogen-assisted therapist development?
EATD integrates MDMA-assisted therapy within a structured personal and professional development (PPD) framework. The protocol enrolls psychotherapists whose work involvement profiles indicate distress, disengagement, or overactivation. Over five months, participants complete three individual MDMA sessions nested in group-based preparation, dosing support, and integration. The design is intentional: it braids learning across personal and professional domains, fosters continuous reflection to ensure transfer into moment-to-moment clinical behavior, and ensures standardized safety and ethics. This is method-independent therapist development—aimed at the therapist variables most predictive of patients’ process and outcome.
Why this frontier matters now.
Mental health disorders impose high existential and financial costs. Solutions require better implementation of existing, evidence-based treatments, the development of new treatments, and the cultivation of more effective therapists. EATD touches all three dimensions, focusing primarily on the latter: By providing therapists firsthand experience with MDMA-AT in a group setting, this project addresses key challenges related to the optimal development and implementation of MDMA-AT as an emergent treatment. This includes providing therapists with a self-experience training module in a scalable group format, potentially enhancing both the quality and accessibility of safe and ethical care. However, its primary innovation and focus lie in integrating MDMA-AT within a broader personal and professional development (PPD) framework for method-independent therapist development. As such, this project pioneers a new frontier in therapist training, Empathogen-Assisted Therapist Development (EATD).
Pioneering deeper ways to assist therapists in developing their intrapersonal and interpersonal capacities is important, as the center of gravity in the psychotherapy research field has shifted from “Which method works best?” to “Which therapist is in the room?” Evidence-based relationships instead of evidence-based methods, since research clearly shows that therapist effects outsize method effects. Yet training systems still underweight therapists’ personal growth.
Converging evidence from early pioneers, retrospective reports, preclinical studies, modern experimental research, and a range of clinical trials points to the potential for MDMA to act as a catalyst for trust, introspection, psychotherapeutic processing, new learning, and ultimately for a deeper connection with oneself and others (Stocker & Liechti, 2024). Psychedelics are often viewed as nonspecific amplifiers that deepen access to unconscious material, enabling study of the psychological currents shaping experience and behavior in ways few tools match. Precisely because psychotherapy demands high levels of self-awareness and integration to navigate intense affect and complex relational dynamics, psychedelics may be uniquely suited to support therapists’ own self-exploration and healing.
How does this training contribute?
This training advances EATD on two fronts. First, it provides funding for further protocol development. Second, it provides a demonstration: the workshop operationalizes the EATD principle with a concrete wounded-healer case presented with clinical granularity.
You will see how fear attenuation and oxytocin-mediated safety enable direct contact with unresolved, embodied feelings. How protective compulsions are recognized rather than rationalized. The documented downstream effects seem practical: a rapid drop in previously unconscious anxiety and defensive overfunctioning in sessions; less exhaustion; more receptivity, exact presence; cleaner timing; and renewed embodiment of Rogers’ core conditions—authenticity, empathy, and unconditional positive regard. The endpoint is not an exalted experience. It is a more relaxed and authentic presence with fewer unseen drivers, more trust in the client’s healing forces, and greater enjoyment.
The format of this training matters. Real footage compresses learning cycles. Role-plays rarely reproduce the somatic signature of actual therapy. Participant reports from earlier cohorts converge on the view that this training indeed was a profound, both personal and professional experience. The high ratings reflect a combination of evocative material and analytic clarity. The outcome is both inspiration and usable learning.
The presenter, Ivar W. Goksøyr, is a clinical psychologist and founder of Psykologvirke. Within MDMA-assisted therapy, he has participated as a client, therapist, assistant trainer, researcher, and educator, including roles in the world’s first MDMA/depression trial. He integrates empathogen work with psychotherapy process science and ongoing ketamine-assisted therapy implementation at his clinic. This training is independent of MAPS.
The field needs disciplined exposure to reality-level clinical processes and a credible pathway for developing therapists who are safer, steadier, and more effective. Empathogen-Assisted Therapist Development may be one such pathway. This workshop both illustrates the principle and helps fund the protocol work required to move from a promising concept to an operational standard.
Enroll now for the two-part live training, secure your seat, and direct a portion of your fee to EATD protocol development. Commit, show up, and translate this material into a cleaner presence and safer, more effective therapy.
