How We Train at Pilamaya
Integration Psychotherapy, Psychedelic-Assisted Training and Experiential Therapeutic Education at The Pilamaya Centre
At Pilamaya, training begins with a framework, not a script. Across our Integration Psychotherapy trainings, Psychedelic-Assisted Integration programmes, counselling courses and professional CPD pathways, we create a clear syllabus in advance – for ethical clarity, accreditation, and containment – but we do not teach by rote. The structure holds the learning; it does not dictate the order or the moment it arrives. This allows the training to remain alive, responsive, and grounded in what is actually happening within the group.
Our approach recognises that therapeutic capacity cannot be learned purely through cognition. While theory matters, it is not sufficient. We train practitioners through lived experience – bringing concepts into the room and allowing them to be understood through embodied practice, relational process, and reflection. Learning happens through presence, not performance. This experiential approach underpins all psychotherapy, counselling, supervision and psychedelic-assisted trainings delivered at The Pilamaya Centre.
Teaching at Pilamaya is responsive to the group field. Different people learn in different ways, and we adapt to this. Some material is delivered through recorded presentations to support self-directed study; this frees in-person time for integration, enquiry, and relational work – the aspects of therapeutic education that cannot be replicated through slides alone.
We understand the role of the framework in the same way we understand it in therapy: it creates safety so that flexibility, creativity, and depth can emerge. When the framework is too rigid, learning becomes defensive. When it is too loose, coherence is lost. Our training lives in that middle space – structured enough to be safe, open enough to allow real transformation.
Importantly, we train therapists in the way we expect them to practise. The group itself becomes a learning environment where projection, resonance, bias, regulation, and presence are encountered directly. This is not incidental – it is intentional. What is felt and recognised in training becomes usable in the therapy room, whether students are developing skills in integration psychotherapy, counselling, supervision, or psychedelic-assisted therapeutic work.
Over time, the focus of training shifts. Early stages centre on the student’s own process and stability. As the training progresses, attention increasingly turns towards client safety, ethical responsibility, and the capacity to hold complexity without collapse. Not everyone is ready for this work at the same moment – and discernment around readiness is part of how we train.
Ultimately, our commitment is not to producing practitioners who can recite models, but to supporting therapists who can meet whatever arrives in the room – grounded, present, and accountable to the human being in front of them. This philosophy defines training at The Pilamaya Centre: experiential, relational, ethically held, and rooted in integration rather than technique alone.
