My Journey
Companion
This workbook is meant to be your companion on your psychedelic journey, from the moment you say “yes” to your journey until you feel your integration process winding down.
This companion has three parts: preparation, flight, and integration.
It contains tools, tips, suggestions, safety principles, and questions for your exploration.
Some of these may resonate. Others may not. Use what may be useful and let go of everything else.
As you explore this companion, we invite you to slow down as much as possible.
Breathe deeply.
From this place of slowness, listen. What do you hear? What might your intuition be telling you? What might you need in this moment?
More than anything, navigating the parts of a psychedelic journey is about creating the space in your life to slow down, breathe deeply, and connect with yourself.
That space may be the foundation for you to make the changes you seek. More than that, it may be the change itself.
A lot may arise for you as you go through this companion. Questions, fears, concerns, epiphanies.
Just remember: you’re not alone.
Your Fireside Coach will be by your side every step of the way.
We wish you a beautiful journey,
Your friends at Fireside Project
Phase 1: Preparation
Intentions
An important part of preparing for your journey is to explore your intention, your why. To help with this inquiry, we share a few questions for you to consider. Feel free to journal about them, ponder them during walks in nature, or discuss them with people you trust.
Before you begin, pause for a moment. Breathe deeply. Connect with yourself. Invite yourself into a space of radical honesty and vulnerability. Try to greet whatever comes with curiosity and compassion.
Why have you decided to do this journey? And why now?
What changes do you want to make in your life?
What challenges are you seeking to navigate?
What are you seeking to let go of? Are you really, truly ready to let go? What might be keeping you from letting go?
Are there habits that are no longer serving you?
Do you feel imprisoned or burdened by any unhealthy patterns? Where might those patterns have originated? What events or circumstances may have set them in motion?
If your life were a book, what chapter would you be in now? What chapter would you like to come next?
What might be holding you back from entering this next chapter?
What fears are arising? Where and when might they have originated? How have those fears limited me in the past? How have they served me?
If the medicine worked exactly as you hope, how would your life be different? Be as specific and detailed as possible.
We invite you to keep checking in with your intentions as your journey unfolds. Are they evolving? Are new intentions arising? Are you receiving insights that shed light on your intentions?
Whatever your intentions are, hold them lightly. Be open to, and curious about, whatever may arise.
5. Post-Interview Review
The supervisors then rate each candidate based on enumerated criteria, then meet to discuss whether to offer the applicant to our training. The ultimate question they ask themselves is whether they’d want the applicant to hold space for them or the person they love most in the world.
6. Background Check
A comprehensive background check is conducted before the training.
7. Letter of Agreement
Applicants must sign a letter of agreement that sets forth in detail the nature of their one-year apprenticeship and their commitments to remain open to learning and growing.
8. Four-Day Live Training
Apprentices attend a four-day, live Zoom training that is a mix of presentations, demonstrations, dyads, triads, and small groups. Apprentices learn the basics of holding space, active listening, how to provide trauma-informed and culturally attuned care, how to handle the myriad types of calls to the support line, varieties of challenging psychedelic experiences and integration experiences, procedures regarding callers who may be in immediate danger and/or suicidal, as well as other policies and procedures.
9. Written Examination
Apprentices must then pass a written examination.
10. Skills Test
Apprentices have a one-on-one meeting with a supervisor where the apprentice and supervisor do a variety of role plays involving scenarios that may occur on the support line. Apprentices must attain a certain score in order to continue in the training process. Some apprentices do not pass, and their apprenticeship concludes.
11. Shift Observation
Apprentices must observe at least two full shifts. During this time, they witness how other apprentices take calls, learn Fireside Project’s software system, and get a feel for the Fireside community.
12. Conditional Approval to Support Callers
Apprentices are then assigned a four-hour shift, where they generally remain for a full year. During the conditional approval stage, apprentices may take calls but they must be observed at all times by a supervisor. After the supervisor observes enough calls to feel sufficiently confident in the apprentice’s skill level, the apprentice is approved to take calls on their own.
13. One Full Year on our Psychedelic Support Line
The apprentice then spends a full year on the support line, working the same four-hour shift every week. During that time, they handle a wide array of live calls, including people in the midst of psychedelic experiences, people integrating past psychedelic experiences, people supporting others having psychedelic experiences, and people working in the psychedelic field who need emotional support. Every shift is a mini-community that consists of three to five apprentices and a paid supervisor who is typically a clinician.
14. Receive Feedback from Supervisors on Shift
Supervisors regularly observe apprentices’ calls and provide detailed, personalized feedback based on enumerated criteria, as well as provide emotional support to the apprentice. Our cutting-edge software system allows us to track apprentices’ progress over time based on supervisor feedback and caller feedback in post-call survey responses.
15. One-on-One Meetings with Supervisors
Supervisors meet quarterly with their apprentices to discuss progress, growth edges, and ways that the apprentice’s experience can be improved.
16. Ongoing Education
Guest speakers are regularly invited to present to the whole Fireside community on a range of topics related to providing psychedelic support and the fulfillment of our mission.
17. Learning in Community
Apprentices have the opportunity to learn and grow in community by leveraging our Mighty Network to form small groups organized by identity, lived experience, or other characteristics.
Coaching as an Employee at Fireside Project
18. Written Application
All coaches are paid employees of Fireside Project. Apprentices who are interested in becoming a coach must first submit a written application that explores their reasons for wanting to become a coach and any prior coaching experience, among other topics.
19. Application Review
At least two staff members review each application, rate the applicant, and then decide whether to conduct an interview.
20. In-Depth Interview
At least two staff members interview each coaching candidate. The interview is one-hour long and includes questions and role plays. The candidate must also review an excerpt of a coaching conversation and analyze the coach’s performance.
21. Holistic Application Review by All Fireside Staff
Our staff sits down as a group and talks through every applicant—their skill level and reliability; their potential; how much they’ve learned and grown over their time on the support line; their awareness of their own internal world and their triggers; how well they receive feedback and provide it to their fellow apprentices; and their overall contribution to the Fireside community.
22. Background Check
A comprehensive background check is conducted of all applicants. This is in addition to the background check that was conduct when the candidate applied to be an apprentice on the support line.
23. Letter of Agreement
Applicants must sign a letter of agreement that sets forth the guidelines for being a coach. Applicants must agree to spend a full year as a coach, attend weekly supervision sessions, and commit to continuing to learn, grow, and develop their skills.
24. Live Training and Video Training
Coaches then undergo a rigorous training process designed by Jacob, Mary, and Firesde staff that combines presentations, demonstrations, role plays, and small groups. But this training isn’t an end in itself. It’s a way of laying the foundations for the learning that will happen in the months and years to come during weekly supervision. We focus on creating a space where deep vulnerability and sharing are encouraged and feel safe.
25. Written Examinations
Coaches must then pass a written examination that covers topics such as the fundamentals of our coaching program, legal and ethical boundaries, the coach-client relationship.
26. Weekly Supervision from Jacob and Mary
This is part of the foundation of how our coaches learn and continue to improve their skills. Coaches must attend weekly supervision sessions run by our Co-Directors of Coaching, Dr. Jacob Ham and Mary Cosimano. These supervision sessions are modeled off of the clinical supervision that is provided to clinicians at Johns Hopkins and Mount Sinai. The sessions focus on identifying coaches’ growth edges, cultivating their awareness of transference and countertransference, and learning how to be more fully present with their clients.
27. Reviews at first 30, 60, and 90 Days of Employment
All coaches are reviewed after their first 30, 60, and 90 days of employment. This includes a written questionnaire and a 1-on-1 meeting with the Coaching Manager. Prior to that meeting, the Coaching Manager receives feedback about the coach from the Co-Directors of Coaching, Operations Team, Executive Director, and clients’ responses to post-session surveys.
28. One-on-One Meetings with Our Coaching Manager
Coaches meet with our Coaching Manager to discuss issues that may arise during coaching, including challenging situations, growth edges, as well as to receive emotional support and encouragement.
29. Comprehensive Review Every Six Months
All coaches undergo a rigorous review every six months on all aspects of their performance, including areas of strength and growth edges.
30. Ongoing Education
Every month, coaches attend presentations by members of staff or outside guests on a range of topics related to coaching.