Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD: Contemplative Foundations and Clinical Frontiers
October 28th, 2025
Dr. Jason M. Thompson—clinical psychologist, Zen practitioner, and author of "Running is a Kind of Dreaming" (HarperCollins, 2021)—offers a wide-angle view of the emerging field of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. Drawing on his doctoral research in the neuroscience of meditation and his clinical work with veterans, he explores the intersection of trauma, altered states, and healing. The talk will introduce key paradigms in psychedelic therapy, then focus on an innovative ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) program at the San Francisco VA, where spiritual care, embodiment, and evidence-based psychotherapy converge in service of recovery.
Jason M. Thompson, PhD
Jason M. Thompson, PhD is a writer and Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at UCSF. He has published multiple articles and book chapters on mindfulness-based intervention and integrative medicine, and he is the author of Running is a Kind of Dreaming, a memoir about recovery from trauma published in 2021 by Harper Collins. He is an ordained Zen Buddhist and certified yoga teacher. Since 2016 he has volunteered as a pro bono forensic trauma evaluator with the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) Asylum Network. In 2022 he completed training in MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for veterans with PTSD and he currently provides ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for veterans.
