Psychedelic-assisted therapy for executives is supervised work with a psychedelic, most often psilocybin, built around the realities of a senior role: psychiatric and medical screening before anything else, sessions only where they are legal, confidentiality that does not rest on goodwill, and integration that continues for months. Done properly, the session itself is the smallest part.
Much of what is marketed to executives under this name is a retreat: a week, usually in a group, followed by a few calls. This page sets out what the work involves, what the evidence does and does not show, six questions to put to any provider, and where our own program fits, including when it is the wrong choice.
What is psychedelic therapy for executives?
It applies the approach used in psilocybin research to people who carry an organization: careful screening, a small number of long sessions with trained facilitators, and structured psychological work before and after. Psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, is the substance most of that research has studied. The substance stays the same for an executive. What changes is the structure around it: privacy, legality, a calendar that cannot stop, and support that continues once you are back at work.
Why do executives seek it out?
In our experience, rarely because of a diagnosis. The usual pattern is that success stopped feeling like enough: burnout that time off does not fix, loneliness at the top, an exit that left a gap where the role used to be, or a quiet “Is this it?” Burnout alone is widespread at this level. When LHH surveyed 2,675 C-suite executives in ten countries in 2025, 56% reported it. Many of our clients have already tried the usual answers, from time off and coaching to a retreat, before they reach this question.
Is psychedelic therapy legal?
That depends on where the session happens. In most countries psilocybin is a controlled substance. A few allow it under narrow conditions: on a psychiatrist’s prescription for treatment-resistant depression in Australia, through a compassionate-use program in Germany, and with licensed facilitators in Oregon and Colorado. In Jamaica it was never scheduled at all, and that is where our residencies take place. Your own country’s law still applies to you wherever you travel. Our sourced country-by-country reference sets out each mechanism.
Is it safe for someone in a senior role?
With proper screening and supervision, psilocybin is generally well tolerated, and its main risks are known in advance. Blood pressure rises for a few hours. The experience itself can be frightening: in a Johns Hopkins dose study, 39% of volunteers went through a period of extreme anxiety or fear at the two highest doses. For people with a personal or family history of psychosis or bipolar disorder, the risk is serious enough to rule them out. Safety comes from who is screened out, who is in the room and what happens if something goes wrong, and our safety page sets out all three.
Will anyone find out?
Not from us. Each residency has one client and no group. Every member of staff signs a non-disclosure agreement that does not expire. Nothing about a client is published without separate written consent, which can be withdrawn at any time, and we never publish that someone inquired, was assessed or was declined.
How much time does it take?
Six months. Three seven-day residencies in Jamaica and, around them, about 50 to 60 online one-to-one sessions with your psychiatrist or psychologist, your health expert and your leadership coach, roughly two a week. It is designed to run alongside a working life, and it underperforms when the time is not really there.
Do I need experience with psychedelics?
No. Most of our clients arrive with little or none. What counts is whether you are psychologically and medically eligible, which screening decides before you are accepted, and preparation that starts weeks before the first session.
Why the format matters more for an executive
The return is the hard part.
Within days you are back inside the same calendar, the same board and the same relationships. A single week’s clarity tends to fade four to eight weeks later, when nothing around it has changed. What holds is decided by the structure after the session.
Privacy is structural or it is missing.
In a group, other participants learn your face, your story and why you came, and none of them has signed anything.
Legal exposure is a governance question.
An underground session is a personal risk for anyone and a board-level one for a chief executive.
The body comes with you.
Exhaustion at this level often has a physiological side, from blood pressure and sleep to the medication you already take. A medical review before any session is where it is found.
What it involves, step by step
The sequence below is ours. Any program you consider should be able to describe its own at the same level of detail.
A private conversation.
A call with the two founders, Hardi and Monika, to see whether this is the right kind of help for what you are dealing with. Pricing is discussed in this call.
The eligibility assessment.
Two parts before any decision: a questionnaire and an interview with a psychiatrist, and a medical review in which your blood tests, heart and kidney markers, blood pressure and every medication you take are reviewed with a nurse practitioner or physician. Some applicants are declined here.
Diagnostics and preparation.
Before you travel, a baseline is measured, from DNA and gut health to hormones, metabolism and biological age, and the online work with your three experts begins.
The first residency.
A week in Jamaica at a private site where you are the only client. It includes two psilocybin sessions. Two trained facilitators stay for the whole of each one, with medical oversight on site, and the days in between are spent on one-to-one work, somatic practice and time in nature.
Integration.
Back home, a psychotherapy call and a health call every week and coaching every other week, so that what surfaced turns into decisions at work and at home.
Twice more, then measurement.
Two further residencies follow over the six months. At the end the same baseline is measured again, and a closing meeting with the founders reviews what changed.
The full structure, phase by phase, is on the program page.
“The whole process is very, very well rehearsed, very well supervised, which gives you a great degree of comfort and trust, because you need that.”
Dean Attwell, Co-founder, Oakland International
Six questions to ask any program
Put these to any provider, including us. A serious program answers each one specifically, and in writing if you ask.
Who screens me, and what rules someone out?
Ours: a psychiatrist interviews you, and a medical review covers bloodwork, cardiovascular and renal markers and every medication. If the physician judges it necessary, you are referred for an EKG.
Who is in the room, and for how long?
Ours: two trained facilitators for the whole of every session, and a dual board-certified nurse practitioner on site throughout the residency.
What happens in an emergency?
Ours: resuscitation equipment on site, a hospital in Montego Bay about 10 km away, and escalation pathways agreed before you arrive.
Is it legal where the sessions take place, and under which law?
Ours: Jamaica, where psilocybin has never been listed in the Dangerous Drugs Act.
Who else will be there, and who has signed what?
Ours: no other clients, and every member of staff under a non-disclosure agreement with no expiry.
What does integration actually consist of?
Ours: six months, with psychotherapy and health calls every week and coaching every other week, all with the same three experts.
What the evidence shows, and what it does not
Most psilocybin research has been done with patients, not leaders. In a trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2022, a single 25 mg dose given to 233 people with treatment-resistant depression at 22 sites significantly reduced symptoms at three weeks.
The closest evidence to a high-functioning population comes from healthy volunteers. In a Johns Hopkins study of 36 adults with no previous psychedelic experience, all of whom took part regularly in religious or spiritual activities, 58% rated their session among the five most personally meaningful experiences of their lives fourteen months later, and 64% said it had increased their well-being or life satisfaction.
Leaders themselves have been studied, but not in programs like this. The only meta-analysis of interventions delivered to leaders covers 25 studies and 2,466 leaders and found no significant effect on stress. Every program in it was a training course, most lasted under eight weeks, and none included a medical assessment or months of individual follow-up.
No trial has tested psychedelic-assisted therapy in executives, or the combination of disciplines we run. The evidence for each part of the program is set out, with its limits, on our research page.
Who it is not for
Screening exists to say no early. Psychedelic-assisted work is ruled out by a personal or family history of schizophrenia-spectrum or psychotic disorders or bipolar disorder, by serious or uncontrolled cardiovascular disease, and by current lithium treatment. It is also the wrong fit for anyone who wants a weekend breakthrough, a performance protocol, or a version without the six months. A well-run retreat or a good coach may serve that person better, and we will say so.
Our program at a glance
Duration: six months, in three phases
Residencies: 3 × 7 days in Jamaica, at a private site, one client at a time
Screening: a psychiatric interview and a medical review before acceptance
Sessions: two psilocybin sessions per residency, two facilitators throughout, medical oversight on site
Core team: a psychiatrist or psychologist, a health expert and a Conscious Leadership coach for all six months
Online sessions: about 50 to 60, one-to-one, across the six months
Measurement: full diagnostic panel before the first residency and after the last
Protocol: designed for each client after screening, with no standard dose or path
Hardi Põder, Co-founder, CEO
Sources
LHH - Views From the C-Suite 2025 (2,675 C-suite executives, 10 countries)
Goodwin et al. - Single-dose psilocybin for a treatment-resistant episode of major depression, New England Journal of Medicine, 2022 (233 patients, 22 sites)
What we assess before acceptance, what rules someone out, and what happens if something goes wrong.
How a six-month program differs from a retreat or executive coaching, including where our format is the wrong choice.
Nine jurisdictions, each with the legal mechanism, the date it took effect and the statute behind it. Not legal advice.