If you are looking for guided psilocybin in the Netherlands, you will quickly come across two kinds of offers. Some describe a psilocybin session: one day, one guide, one experience. Others describe a psilocybin program: a longer process in which the session is one part of a larger whole.
Both can be offered with care. But they are not the same thing, and the difference is easy to miss when you compare them side by side on a booking site. This article explains what each usually includes, what research suggests about the process around the experience, and which questions can help you choose what fits.
What people usually mean by a psilocybin session
A psilocybin session is typically a single guided experience of four to eight hours. You take legal psilocybin truffles in the Netherlands. Often in a private setting, sometimes at the guide’s location, sometimes in your own home or hotel. A guide or sitter stays with you throughout.
Around that day, there is often a short intake: a questionnaire and a call. Some providers add one preparation conversation beforehand and one integration conversation afterwards. Others offer self-care advice for the rest of the day.
Many sitters are experienced, attentive and kind. For some people, a well-held single session is exactly what they are looking for. It is accessible, contained and relatively affordable.
What a session format rarely has room for is time: time to get to know each other, to prepare beyond setting an intention, and to stay with what emerges in the weeks afterwards.
Sitter, guide or therapist: what’s in a name?
Guided psychedelic work uses many titles: sitter, guide, facilitator, psychedelic coach, therapist. None of them is a protected title in the Netherlands, and they can describe quite different roles.
A sitter’s core task is to hold a safe, non-directive space during the experience itself: calm presence, attention, and care when things become intense. Psychedelic researcher James Fadiman described guiding someone through a psychedelic journey as a sacred task, asking for compassion, intuition and loving-kindness. In Oregon, where licensed psilocybin services have been available since 2023, facilitator training focuses on exactly this: non-directive support during the session, crisis management and self-care. Whether a facilitator can also offer therapeutic support afterwards depends on their own training and experience.
A psychedelic therapist works across all three phases: preparation, the experience and integration. Psychologist Janis Phelps (2017) described the competencies this asks for, including empathic presence, the ability to build trust, self-awareness and ethical integrity, knowledge of the physical and psychological effects, and skill in complementary methods such as body-oriented work or Internal Family Systems.
Both roles can be valuable. The question is which one matches what you are looking for.
What a psilocybin program adds
In a program, the psilocybin experience is not the centre of the work. It is one moment within a process of preparation, experience and integration. Each phase supports the next.
Time as part of the method
A program unfolds over weeks or months. That gives room to build a working relationship of trust before the experience, and to return to it afterwards. Insights often keep unfolding long after the day itself; a longer process allows them to be noticed, understood and given a place in daily life.
Screening that goes beyond a form
Psilocybin is not suitable for everyone. Personal or family history of psychosis or bipolar disorder, certain heart conditions and some medications can be reasons not to proceed. In a careful program, screening is a conversation as well as a questionnaire, and medical questions are reviewed by a physician.
Preparation that reaches the body and the inner system
Preparation is more than choosing an intention. It can include exploring what you hope for and what you fear, getting to know protective parts of yourself, practising ways to stay with intense emotion, and supporting a settled nervous system. The better prepared you are, the more you can allow the experience to unfold rather than resist it.
The experience, held within a relationship
When the person guiding your experience is the same person who prepared you, much is already known: your history, your sensitivities, your agreements. Trust has had time to grow. That continuity makes it easier to let go, and easier to be met when something difficult arises.
Integration over weeks, not one conversation
Integration is where an experience starts to matter in everyday life. It means making sense of what came up emotionally, physically and symbolically, and translating it into small, real shifts in how you relate to yourself and others. That rarely fits into a single follow-up call.
Without that support, insights can remain on the surface or be misunderstood. Research on people who experienced lasting difficulties after psychedelic use points to the role of limited preparation, psychological safety and aftercare (Evans et al., 2023).
What research suggests about the process around the experience
Modern psilocybin research has never relied on the substance alone. The major research organisations have built their protocols around preparation, psychological support and integration (Bathje et al., 2022).
In a multi-site trial for depression led by the Usona Institute, for example, participants received six to eight hours of preparation with two facilitators before dosing, and around four hours of integration sessions afterwards (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03866174).
The quality of the relationship matters as much as the hours. Across psychotherapy research, the therapeutic alliance is one of the most consistent factors in change (Baier et al., 2020). In a psilocybin study for depression at Imperial College London, the strength of the alliance and rapport with the guides shaped how participants responded (Murphy et al., 2022).
Researchers are open about what is still unknown. Integration practices have not yet been standardised or fully validated (guide to psychedelic study design, 2025). Some clinicians involved in trials observe that many participants need more integration support than protocols currently offer (Lucid News).
What the field does broadly agree on: set, setting, preparation and integration shape the experience and what people take from it. The value of a psilocybin experience depends strongly on the process around it.
The Dutch context: legal, but not regulated
Fresh psilocybin truffles are legal in the Netherlands. That makes the country one of the few places in Europe where guided psilocybin work can take place openly.
Why truffles, not mushrooms
In the Netherlands, guided psilocybin work uses truffles rather than mushrooms. Magic mushrooms have been prohibited since 2008, while psilocybin truffles remain legal. Truffles are sclerotia: dense, underground formations of the same fungi. Both contain psilocybin and psilocin and can produce comparable effects. So when Dutch providers offer a truffle session, they mean a psilocybin session with legal truffles. Read more: magic truffles vs. magic mushrooms
It also means something that is easy to overlook. Guiding truffle sessions is not a protected profession, and there are no formal quality requirements for providers. Leiden researcher Michiel van Elk has pointed to the risk that vulnerable people take part, or receive too little support (Omroep Brabant).
There is another reason this matters. Psilocybin can loosen rigid patterns of thinking, which also makes people more open to suggestion during the experience (Villiger & Trachsel, 2023). That openness is part of what makes the work valuable, and it is exactly why the training, self-awareness and ethics of whoever guides you are so important.
This does not mean that providers are careless. Many work with great integrity. It does mean that you are the one who needs to ask the right questions.
Session and program side by side
| Psilocybin session | Psilocybin program | |
| Duration | One day, sometimes with a call before and after | Approximately three months |
| Screening | Usually a questionnaire, sometimes a call | Psychological intake and physician-reviewed medical screening |
| Preparation | Often one conversation or none | Several in-depth sessions, including parts work, breathwork and nervous system support |
| The experience | Guided by a sitter or facilitator | Guided by the same professional (psychologist/therapist) who prepared you, in a private retreat setting |
| Integration | Often one conversation or written advice | Daily contact in the first week, then sessions over the following weeks |
| Relationship | Mainly on the day itself | Built up and continued throughout the process |
| Suits | People with prior experience and their own support network | People who want to work in depth with patterns, history or life questions |
Questions to ask any provider
Whichever format you choose, these questions can help you find out how carefully you will be supported:
- What is your professional background, and what training did you follow?
- How do you screen for psychological and medical risks? Is a doctor involved?
- How much preparation is included, and what does it consist of?
- How is the dose decided, and am I free to say no, even on the day itself?
- Do we agree beforehand on boundaries, including whether and how touch is used?
- Will the person guiding the experience also prepare me and support my integration?
- What happens if something difficult comes up during or after the experience?
- How long can I reach you afterwards?
- Which code of ethics do you work by?
A thoughtful provider will welcome these questions.
When a session may be enough, and when a program may serve you better
A single session may suit you if you have prior experience with psychedelics, feel psychologically stable, have no specific themes you want to work through, and already have good support around you, such as a therapist.
A program may serve you better if this is your first experience, if you want to work with long-standing patterns, grief or past experiences, or if you want the experience to genuinely find its way into your life. It may also fit if discretion and continuity matter to you, for instance in a demanding professional role.
Neither choice is better in itself. What matters is that the format matches what you bring.
How I work
I am Naomi Stubbé, a psychologist with more than 30 years of experience in guiding people through change, personal development and inner work. I am trained in MDMA-assisted therapy by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and work with Internal Family Systems, breathwork and body-oriented methods. I work in line with the MAPS Code of Ethics, the Guild of Guides code of conduct and the North Star Ethics Pledge.
In my book Het potentieel van psychedelica (The Potential of Psychedelics), I devote a full chapter to the power of guidance: what good facilitators and therapists bring, how set and setting shape the experience, and where things can go wrong. What I learned there, as a psychologist and as a participant myself, shapes how I work. Trust takes time, and that time is essential. Preparation includes psycho-education and attention to sleep, nutrition and rest. We decide on the dose together, and you are always free to say no, even at the very last moment.
My Private Psilocybin Program is a fully private, three-month process. It includes a psychological intake, medical screening reviewed by a psychedelic trained physician, three in-depth preparation sessions, a two- or three-day retreat near Amsterdam, and structured integration. From first conversation to integration, you are supported by the same person.
Not every question needs a three-month program. If you are unsure what fits, a conversation can help bring clarity.
References
Baier, A. L., Kline, A. C., & Feeny, N. C. (2020). Therapeutic alliance as a mediator of change: A systematic review and evaluation of research. Clinical Psychology Review, 82, 101921. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2020.101921
Bathje, G. J., Majeski, E., & Kudowor, M. (2022). Psychedelic integration: An analysis of the concept and its practice. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 824077. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.824077
Evans, J., Robinson, O. C., Argyri, E. K., Suseelan, S., Murphy-Beiner, A., McAlpine, R., Luke, D., Michelle, K., & Prideaux, E. (2023). Extended difficulties following the use of psychedelic drugs: A mixed methods study. PLOS ONE, 18(10), e0293349. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293349
Fadiman, J. (2011). The psychedelic explorer’s guide: Safe, therapeutic, and sacred journeys. Park Street Press. ISBN 978-1-59477-402-7. https://www.simonandschuster.ca/books/The-Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide/James-Fadiman/9781594774027
Glennon, M. J., Bird, C. I. V., Yadav, P., Kleine, P., Suseelan, S., Boman-Markaki, C., Kotoula, V., Butler, M., Leech, R., Roseman, L., Erritzoe, D., Srivastava, D. P., Morgan, C., Timmermann, C., Cooper, G., Skipper, J. I., Rucker, J., Kamboj, S. K., Mehta, M. A., . . . Bhat, A. (2025).How to set up a psychedelic study: Unique considerations for research involving human participants [Preprint]. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.22808
Hoeks, S., & Kösters, C. (2026, May 7). Geen controle op truffelceremonies: ‘Veel mensen denken: ik kan dit wel’. Omroep Brabant. https://www.omroepbrabant.nl/nieuws/6008331/geen-controle-op-truffelceremonies-veel-mensen-denken-ik-kan-dit-wel
Murphy, R., Kettner, H., Zeifman, R., Giribaldi, B., Kartner, L., Martell, J., Read, T., Murphy-Beiner, A., Baker-Jones, M., Nutt, D., Erritzoe, D., Watts, R., & Carhart-Harris, R. (2022). Therapeutic alliance and rapport modulate responses to psilocybin assisted therapy for depression. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 12, 788155. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2021.788155
Oregon Health Authority. (n.d.). Oregon Psilocybin Services: Psilocybin facilitator training (HECC information). https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/PREVENTIONWELLNESS/Pages/HECC-Information.aspx
Phelps, J. (2017). Developing guidelines and competencies for the training of psychedelic therapists. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 57(5), 450–487. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167817711304
Stubbé, N. (2025). Het potentieel van psychedelica: Gids voor therapie & persoonlijke groei met geestverruimende middelen (Chapter 9: De kracht van begeleiding). Uitgeverij SWP. ISBN 978-90-8560-325-2.
Usona Institute. (n.d.). A randomized, double-blind study of single-dose psilocybin for major depressive disorder (MDD) (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT03866174). https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03866174
Villiger, D., & Trachsel, M. (2023). With great power comes great vulnerability: An ethical analysis of psychedelics’ therapeutic mechanisms proposed by the REBUS hypothesis. Journal of Medical Ethics, 49(12), 826–832. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme-2022-108816
Wolswijk, F. (2022, April 19). What’s the best psychedelic therapy protocol? It’s debatable. Lucid News. https://www.lucid.news/whats-the-best-psychedelic-therapy-protocol-its-debatable/
A psilocybin session is usually a single guided day, sometimes with one conversation before and after. This program is a three-month, one-to-one process in which the experience is one part of a larger whole. It includes a psychological intake, physician-reviewed medical screening, three in-depth preparation sessions, a private two- or three-day retreat, and integration support over several weeks. You are guided throughout by the same psychologist, so trust can grow and insights have time to settle into daily life. Read more about the difference
