What it is
IPI runs what is probably the highest-volume psychedelic therapy training aimed at working clinicians in the US: it claims 2,200+ providers trained. The current offering is 'Level I Certification', a four-month online course running 4 September to 11 December 2026. Nothing about it requires travel. You get a set of asynchronous 'Foundations' modules before the start date, two one-day live virtual intensives that bookend the course, a weekly 60-minute Tuesday lecture, a bi-weekly two-hour Thursday seminar in breakout rooms, a weekly hour-long small group, and a private forum. Everything is recorded and stays available for a year after the program ends. IPI counts the whole package as 140 hours, 55 of them live.
The tuition is $7,000, discounted to $5,000 for registrations before 31 August 2026, with payment plans discussed on an admissions call. That buys the online course and two advertised bonuses: 40 hours of recorded real ketamine and psilocybin sessions, and a 20-hour 'Psychedelic Therapy B-School' on running a practice. Continuing education is real and externally accredited: up to 49.0 credits through AKH Inc., which is jointly accredited by ACCME, ACPE and ANCC, with psychologist credit through APA and social-work credit through ASWB ACE. For a California LMFT that matters — the BBS recognizes APA and ASWB as CE approval agencies, and requires 36 CE hours per two-year renewal.
The experiential component is a separate purchase, not part of the certificate price. IPI operates its own Oregon psilocybin service center, Conscious Encounters, in downtown Eugene, and sells a 'Certificate in Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy': a 4-day, 40-hour practicum, Tuesday to Friday, capped at 24 people, for $3,000 (payment plan $500/month), plus $46–$90 paid on-site for the psilocybin itself because Oregon rules require the service center to sell it separately. You get one personal dosing session (up to 35mg psilocybin analyte) and act as student facilitator in a second, with Oregon-licensed facilitators as the primary facilitators. This is the only in-person, hands-on part of IPI's offering.
The scope claim on the sales page is unusually careful for this field — IPI says in plain text that Level I is not approved by Colorado DORA or the Oregon Health Authority. That is true of Level I on its own. But OHA's live list of training programs with approved curriculum does contain an IPI entry, listed as 'IPI Psychedelic Assisted Therapy Training with an Advanced Certificate in Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy', registered to Niwot, CO, pointing at this same page. So the combined online course plus psilocybin practicum is an OHA-approved curriculum; the online course by itself is not. IPI's public marketing does not spell this distinction out, and a prospective student should get it in writing from both IPI and OHA before paying.
See it and hear it
What it lets you do
This is the section the program’s own marketing is least specific about, so it runs before everything else. It was established against the program’s own materials and against the two state registers that matter — Oregon’s approved-curriculum list and Colorado’s.
- Keep practicing as a California LMFT, with a school-issued certificate that says you completed a 140-hour course. It is a credential from IPI, not from a regulator.
- Count up to 49.0 continuing education credits toward your BBS renewal. IPI's CE is provided through AKH Inc. (jointly accredited by ACCME, ACPE and ANCC), with psychologist credit via APA and social-work credit via ASWB ACE — and the California BBS recognizes APA and ASWB as CE approval agencies for its 36-hour-per-renewal requirement. That is the one concrete, regulator-recognized thing this certificate does in California.
- Practice ketamine-assisted psychotherapy in California, working alongside a physician, NP or PA who prescribes and is responsible for the ketamine. You do not prescribe. Nothing about the certificate creates this ability — an LMFT can already do KAP in collaboration with a prescriber — but the training is aimed squarely at it, and IPI is candid that ketamine is the only modality available now.
- Offer psychedelic preparation and integration therapy, which is ordinary psychotherapy about a client's experience and needs no special credential.
- Have a personal, legal psilocybin experience and a supervised turn as facilitator, if you also buy the $3,000 Eugene practicum. Under Oregon's framework this is psilocybin services at a licensed service center, not therapy.
- Pursue an Oregon psilocybin facilitator license off the back of it — but only via the combined pathway. OHA's live list of training programs with approved curriculum includes 'IPI Psychedelic Assisted Therapy Training with an Advanced Certificate in Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy'. Approved curriculum is one of six requirements; you also need to be 21+, hold a high school diploma, pass a criminal background check, complete the program's practicum and comprehensive exam, and pass an OHA-administered exam.
- Be more credible to a ketamine clinic that hires. IPI is the highest-volume trainer in this space and clinic job listings recognize the name; that is a market fact, not a regulatory one.
- Change your BBS license, scope of practice or title in any way. The BBS does not issue, recognize or require a psychedelic-therapy credential, and does not maintain a list of them.
- Administer, prescribe, supply or possess psilocybin or MDMA in California. Both remain Schedule I federally and there is no California therapeutic framework — SB 58 was vetoed in October 2023 and the state's 2025 action was a bill to accelerate study of psychedelics for PTSD, not to legalise therapeutic use.
- Use the Level I certificate on its own for Oregon or Colorado licensure. IPI says so itself, verbatim, on the sales page: Level I 'is not an approved training' by DORA or OHA.
- Get anywhere with Colorado. IPI does not appear on DORA's list of Approved Natural Medicine Training Programs (checked 6 August 2026).
- Practice as a psychotherapist while facilitating in Oregon, if you go that route. OHA is explicit: licensed facilitators 'may not practice on other professional licenses while providing preparation, administration, or integration sessions to clients.' An Oregon facilitator license is a separate, non-clinical role — it is not LMFT work with mushrooms.
- Do anything with MDMA outside a research protocol or MAPS' expanded access. The FDA issued a complete response letter on Lykos' MDMA-assisted therapy application in August 2024 and there has been no approval since. IPI's own page says MDMA and psilocybin 'may only be a year away from a full FDA approval' — that is IPI's marketing claim, not a regulatory position, and similar claims have been made for several years.
While ketamine is the only nationwide psychedelic treatment available, MDMA and Psilocybin may only be a year away from a full FDA approval. However, Level I certification is not an approved training by the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) for purposes of licensure under the Colorado Natural Medicine and Natural Medicine Product Act, nor is it an approved training by the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) for licensure under the Oregon Psilocybin Services Act.— Integrative Psychiatry Institute (IPI), in its own materials
Why the answer is this narrow →
Cost, length and who can apply
What you would study
- Professional Development & Ethics
Ethics in psychedelic-assisted therapy; integrating ketamine-assisted therapy into a clinical practice; protecting boundaries in psychedelic sessions; professional liability.
source ↗ - Therapeutic Skills
Therapist self-regulation; how to work with the 'Inner Healing Intelligence'; how to be with non-ordinary states of consciousness; navigating the safe uses of therapeutic touch.
source ↗ - Cultural Humility & Indigenous Use
Indigenous history of psychedelic use; diversity, equity and inclusion in psychedelic medicine; confronting bias and cultural appropriation; the intersection of capitalism and psychedelics.
source ↗ - Research & Pharmacology
History and current status of MDMA, psilocybin, ketamine and other psychedelic research; screening and monitoring for patient psychological safety; patient education on benefits and challenges; chemistry and pharmacology of psychedelics.
source ↗ - Preparation Process
Mindfulness and intention-setting practices; physical preparation; set and setting; establishing safety measures.
source ↗ - Integration Tools
Addressing an expanded spectrum of root causes; mind-body practices to support integration; somatic therapy techniques and parts work; values-based behavior change.
source ↗ - Certificate in Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy (separate 4-day practicum, Eugene, Oregon)
40 hours over four days at IPI's own Oregon psilocybin service center, Conscious Encounters, capped at 24 people. Preparation (large-group and peer-to-peer), two dosing days with a personal dosing session in group format (up to 35mg psilocybin analyte, roughly 3–4 grams of raw material, with an 11am booster) and a turn as student facilitator in the second session, group and peer integration, plus emergency protocol training, yoga and movement. Oregon-licensed facilitators act as the primary facilitators. A 60-minute online group integration follows. $3,000, psilocybin purchased separately on-site.
source ↗
Who teaches it
Faculty is a large part of what these programs actually sell, and it changes between cohorts — check the current list before you decide on this basis.
- Will Van Derveer, MD — co-founder and Medical Director; conducted MDMA clinical research and provided MDMA-assisted psychotherapy with MAPS; contributor to the 2021 'Handbook of Medical Hallucinogens'.
- Keith Kurlander, MA, LPC — co-founder; runs IPI's Higher Practice Podcast.
- Jaime Davila, MA, LPC — Director of Psychedelic Trainings; Colorado LPC, teaches in Spanish as well as English.
- Sara Gael, MA, LPC — Lead Facilitator; Course Director of this training 2020–2022; MDMA-assisted therapy and psychedelic risk reduction.
- Rohini Kanniganti, MD — Physician Team Lead; hospice and palliative care physician; IPI's own bio credits her with leading physician support for the experiential aspect of the training.
- Katie Markley, MA, LPC, LAC — Director of Psilocybin Retreats, leads the Eugene practicum.
- Guest lecturers named on the page include Robin Carhart-Harris (Imperial College psilocybin imaging and trials), Rick Doblin (MAPS founder), Michael Pollan, Rosalind Watts (developed the ACE model on the Imperial psilocybin-for-depression trial), Anthony Bossis (NYU), Bill Richards (Johns Hopkins), Joe Tafur, Mary Sanders, LCSW, Kylea Taylor, LMFT (InnerEthics), and Chris Stauffer, MD (OHSU). IPI notes 'Lecturers vary by cohort' — do not assume any named individual will teach your cohort.
What people say about it
Quoted with the source attached in every case, including the program’s own claims about itself — which are labeled as such — and the critical ones.
Where it stands right now
Enrolling. Verified 6 August 2026: the page advertises the September 2026 – December 2026 cohort, with Virtual Intensive I on 4 September 2026, Virtual Intensive II on 11 December 2026, and a registration discount expiring 31 August 2026. Source: https://psychiatryinstitute.com/ipi-year-long-psychedelic-assisted-therapy-training/. The Eugene psilocybin practicum page says 'Now Enrolling for C6', but IPI's own internal site-search title for that page reads 'X Expired Psilocybin Retreats', so confirm current practicum dates directly before assuming it is running.
What I could not establish
These are the things I looked for and could not establish. Take them to the program, and notice how quickly and precisely they answer.
- IPI does not publish a page describing the 'Advanced Certificate in Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy' under that name, even though that is the exact title under which the program is listed on Oregon's approved-curriculum list. The nearest public page is the 'Certificate in Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy' practicum page. The precise combination of components OHA has approved is not stated anywhere publicly.
- The page says the program 'focuses on eight modules' but only six module blocks are published. The other two are not named.
- CE credit figures are inconsistent between IPI's two versions of the sales page: the main page says 'up to 49.0 continuing education credits'; the /psychedelic2/ variant says 'We are anticipating approval of 20 CE/CME credits for the Foundations of Psychedelic Therapy asynchronous portion'. It is not clear how the two relate or which applies to the 2026 cohort.
- No refund or cancelation policy is published for the main program.
- No published class size for the online program (the Eugene practicum is capped at 24).
- The '4.7 out of 5 from over 2,200 practitioners' rating has no stated source, platform or sample.
- Independent review sources are unavailable from this environment: Reddit and Trustpilot both returned 403.
- Whether IPI's Oregon service center and practicum are currently operating in 2026 is not fully clear — the practicum page carries dated language ('as early as next year') and IPI's own internal page title marks it 'Expired'.
Sources for this page (8)
- IPI Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Training — main program page (tuition, hours, dates, eligibility, curriculum, CE, DORA/OHA disclaimer)
- IPI program page variant with FAQ (certification requirements, live intensives, mentorship, alternate CE figure)
- IPI Certificate in Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy — 4-day Eugene, Oregon practicum ($3,000, 40 hours, dosing protocol, FAQ)
- Oregon Psilocybin Services — live list of training programs with approved curriculum (IPI entry, checked 6 Aug 2026)
- Oregon Health Authority — Facilitator License Fact Sheet (six applicant requirements; no practicing on another professional license while facilitating)
- Colorado DORA — Natural Medicine homepage with Approved Natural Medicine Training Programs list (IPI absent, checked 6 Aug 2026)
- California Board of Behavioral Sciences — Continuing Education (36 hours per renewal; APA and ASWB recognized as CE approval agencies; BBS keeps no provider list)
- IPI Overview of Programs