Ensuring Your Clients Have Room To Heal and Thrive: How To Create a Psilocybin Treatment Rooms

You’ve decided to pursue the opportunity to become a psilocybin treatment facilitator. Starting your own business as a facilitator is both exciting and intimidating. With so much to think of to get your business started, you wonder if you’ll forget something crucial — especially when creating a healing space for your clients.

In this guide, we’ve provided some ideas about how to design treatment spaces that are comfortable and created to foster the experience your clients desire. To plan your own treatment rooms, look at these eight tips and ideas on how to create spaces for individuals and groups.

How a Space Can Impact Mood, Feelings, and Behavior

We’ve all experienced it — changes in mood, feelings, or behavior, depending on a particular space’s design or color. Who hasn’t felt relaxed and at ease in a room with comfy furnishings? Or feeling reinvigorated or motivated in a minimalist space with muted colors.

If the atmosphere of a room can impact us when not in a psychedelic state, it only seems logical that the same would be true when in an altered state.

Mood, feelings, and behavior can be affected by the following characteristics of a space:

• Colors: Though more research is needed, some studies may suggest that “specific colors and their frequencies have a physiological and psychological impact on your feelings and behavior.” For example, the following colors may impact corresponding moods:some text
  • Red: passion, anger, love
  • Yellow: joy, happiness
  • Blue: calmness, peace, serenity
  • Purple: relaxation, imagination
  • Orange: excitement, pleasure
• Shape: This study on how room shape can affect a person’s mood, physiology, and mental health showed that participants in a curved room (rather than a rectangular room) “experienced higher positive affect and lower negative affect.” Heart rates were also lower, and creativity was higher in the curved room.
• Lighting: According to environmental scientist Dr. Sally Augustin, natural light may enhance people’s creativity and mood. She also asserts that while warm lighting may create a cozy, social atmosphere, cool lighting may be better for focus and concentration.
• Textures: Feeling different textures can reveal different emotional associations, according to a study published in the journal “Consciousness and Cognition.” For example, soft surfaces generally were linked to pleasant emotions, while rough surfaces were generally associated with unpleasant feelings.

8 Key Elements To Consider for Your Psilocybin Treatment Room Design 

Creating the most optimal psilocybin treatment room design is more than picking out the right color of furniture or opting for drawing curtains over shades. You’re creating a space that has the potential to positively or negatively impact your client’s psychedelic experience. 

When thinking about therapy room design, pay attention to these factors to provide an optimal space to give your clients positive experiences geared around their desired outcomes:

• Color
• Lighting
• Nature
• Art
• Comfort
• And more

#1: Color Schemes

As mentioned above, colors can impact mood and behavior. When deciding on color schemes for psilocybin treatment rooms, consider the colors that coincide with the clients' goals. 

If many of your clients are using psilocybin therapy for recreational purposes or want to jumpstart their creativity, you might want to have cooler color schemes and fun furniture. If you are looking to help clients process trauma or use psychedelics as therapy, you may want to go for neutral, relaxing color palettes and schemes. 

#2: Lighting

Lighting should also be considered as an “ambiance” element. Too bright of a room can feel sterile and uncomfortable. Too dark might be menacing. A dimmer switch can give you the best of both worlds and adjust the lighting based on your client’s wishes. 

#3: Nature

To bring some life into a psilocybin treatment room, bring in some small pieces of nature. Consider including simple plants and flowers in the space to enhance an atmosphere of nurture and energy. 

In addition to bringing nature indoors, consider a treatment setting surrounded by nature to enhance and foster an enlightening experience for your clients.

#4: A Place To Just “Be”

Mushrooms may make people feel sluggish. They may desire to lie down or to pace or move around on the floor. To accommodate these activities, create a space to move around, sit down, and just “be” for both the client and the facilitator. 

As a facilitator creating the treatment room, select comfortable furniture and reserve an area for the client to move around, sit down, and lie down on the floor as they desire.

#5: Abstract Art and Objects

Art can be an excellent addition to a therapy room, but it should be carefully chosen to create the right atmosphere to foster an experience according to the client’s wishes.

Choose art with abstract features, like shapes, patterns, and muted color combinations,  and avoid art with detailed places, items, faces, or other distinct features. Realistic art with people or places may conjure unpleasant memories or trigger traumatic responses.

#6: Amenities and Activities

As a facilitator, it may be appropriate to provide creative amenities like paints, puzzles,worry stones and fidget gadgets. Music will also be a welcome and helpful addition to a treatment session. 

Journaling or drawing may also be other activities to help keep clients focused on their intention of the experience, so include a table with the proper supplies for these activities.

To become a qualified psilocybin facilitator, choose Clinical Cognitive Training — the first certified psilocybin facilitator training in Oregon. With small class sizes and small student-to-instructor ratios, you’ll receive the personal attention you need to receive the knowledge and skills needed as a facilitator. Contact us today to connect with an admissions advisor.

#7: Access to Food, Water, and Bathrooms

Since some psilocybin treatment sessions may last from six to eight hours, it’s absolutely necessary to consider provisions for food, water, and a restroom.

All food items must be prepackaged per Oregon facilitator law. Water is a must when experiencing an altered state as well as having a bathroom, preferably attached to the room itself.

#8: Creature Comforts

The goal of a psilocybin treatment room design and included items should feature things that comfort guests. Any item that can provide a comfortable experience should be considered, including:

• Blankets
• Pillows
• Sheets

You may also suggest that clients bring their own comfort items for an even more personal experience. Some centers might even offer clients robes to get comfortable in.

When people are in an altered state, they can feel a variety of sensations. Cold packs and heat packs may help when a client experiences unpleasant feelings. In case a client experiences nausea, it’s also important to have appropriate supplies on hand.

Creating a Space for Group Psilocybin Therapy vs. Single Client Psilocybin Therapy 

When facilitating a treatment for a single client, creating a customized space is much easier than for a group session. As a facilitator, you can take in mind the client’s wishes and intentions, and create a space particularly suited for their desired experience. 

When it comes to group therapy room design, challenges arise that aren’t present with single clients. For groups, you may want to think about:

• Space for everyone
• An area to bring guests who are disturbing the group
• Enough amenities for everyone to share and participate if they wish
• Plenty of bathrooms 

Clinical Cognitive Training: Providing Comprehensive Psilocybin Facilitator Training in Oregon

If you believe becoming a certified psilocybin facilitator would help you meet your professional and personal goals, Clinical Cognitive Training is poised to train facilitators in our on-campus and hybrid programs.

Whether clients desire spiritual exploration, healing from trauma, relief from anxiety or depression, or increased creativity, the instructors at Clinical Cognitive Training are committed to graduating skilled, ethical, and caring professional psychedelic facilitators. 

Choose our program because of these qualities that make our program stand above others:

• Ability to work while completing the training
• Hybrid program flexibility
• Small class sizes — four students per  practicum cohort
• Giving 175 hours (15 more than state requirements, including CPR and First Aid training
• Hours in pharmacology
• Student kit to give students tools to get started
• Focus on health and cultural usage
• Affordable tuition

Getting started is easy. Reach out to an admissions advisor. They will guide you in submitting an application. The $150 application fee is added to the tuition quote. Admissions advisors can guide you in the next steps to entering the program.