Indigenous Psychedelic Assisted Therapies - IPAT

What a beautiful two days spent together on Bundjalung Country during Reconciliation Week for the IPAT .au Trauma Informed Care and Practice training, delivered under the .au sovereign business model facilitated by Jem & Bianca

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us and contributed so generously to the learning. The wisdom, vulnerability, courage and deep listening each person brought helped create a rich and meaningful space for reflection, connection and growth.

Together we explored trauma, intergenerational and historical trauma, healing-centred approaches to care, and the understanding that relationship is at the heart of wellbeing and healing. This work is not simply about learning new skills. It is about developing the cultural competencies and responsiveness needed to walk alongside people with humility, respect and accountability.

A special thank you to Jarmbi .miles for opening our gathering with a Smoking Ceremony and sharing your wisdom. It is always such an honour to have you with us brother.

Thank you also to Chelsea at for opening your beautiful space and allowing this work to be held immersed amongst the beauty of Country.

We leave carrying new insights, deeper connections, and a renewed commitment to walking in right relationship with ourselves, each other, community and Country.

Until next time.

This Reconciliation Week, the 2026 theme calls us to be “All In.”

But being all in means more than symbolic gestures, polished statements, or one week of the year dedicated to reconciliation.

It asks us to move into deeper reflection, responsibility, relationship and action.

At IPAT, we believe reconciliation needs to start with relationship. Relationship to truth, community, Country. And questioning the relationship to the systems we participate in and the courage required to transform them.

Real reconciliation requires an ongoing commitment to addressing the systemic harms that continue to disproportionately impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities today.

This means truth telling, accountability, cultural humility and most importantly redistributing power, listening deeply, and walking alongside community rather than speaking over it.

As psychedelic assisted therapy emerges within Australia’s mental health system, these conversations are not optional. Therapists, organisations and institutions are accountable for their cultural competencies and responsiveness within this work. If you cannot hold these stories while living on stolen land, this is where your work needs to begin.

We honour the resilience, survival, wisdom and sovereignty of First Nations peoples across this continent now known as Australia.

Meet IPAT 🤎

Indigenous Psychedelic Assisted Therapies (IPAT) is Australia’s only Indigenous-led organisation advocating for cultural humility and the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge systems within the psychedelic assisted therapy field.

Our work supports a more balanced and accountable future for psychedelic therapies. One that recognises the value of both Indigenous and western knowledge systems, and how they can work together in ways that deepen healing, connection, care, and offer a deeper human experience for all people.

We provide:
🤎 7 Day On Country Psychedelic Assisted Therapy Training
🤎 2 Day Indigenous Approach to Trauma Informed Care and Practice, in collaboration with We Al-li .au
🤎 Cultural consultation and supervision for clinics, practices and research trials
🤎 Connections with Aboriginal Psychedelic Therapists to walk beside you in this work

We have:
• Successfully advocated for the first non-clinical Indigenous healing practitioners to be trained as psychedelic therapists
• Participated in national guideline development
• Created an alternative model of PAT rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing
• Published a paper in the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Public Health

Dadirri, deep listening, and connection to Country are foundational in all we do, with Country as our lead facilitator.

If you are considering entering the field of psychedelic therapy, train with us and experience the difference of a relational, culturally informed approach that centres the important things other trainings leave out.

Our work is grounded in a Two-Eyed Seeing approach, bringing together Indigenous knowledge systems and western therapeutic frameworks to cultivate deeper cultural responsiveness, humility, safety and connection.

If you are working in the psychedelic therapy space and haven’t connected with us yet, reach out, we’d love to connect.

ipat.au 🤎

Psychedelic Assisted Therapy Training
A Relational, Two-Eyed Seeing Approach to Psychedelic Therapy
On Country Immersive Training

IPAT presents a seven-day, live-in, fully catered residential training held on Country in the lush Byron Bay Hinterland at Avana Byron.

An immersive training grounded in both clinical practice and Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing.

Together we explore psychedelic-assisted therapy through a Two-Eyed Seeing approach, bringing Western clinical frameworks and Indigenous knowledge systems into right relationship without collapsing one into the other.

Held amongst rainforest, creek, birdsong and fire circle, participants are invited into deep listening, Dadirri, group process, breathwork, earth connection practices, preparation and integration frameworks, and the development of culturally responsive clinical practice.

This training is for those feeling called into a deeper relationship with psychedelic therapy work.

Guest lecturers include
🌟Peter Levine, developer of Somatic Experiencing and internationally recognised trauma expert
🌟Monica Schweickle of The Psychedelic Consultancy, the first therapist in the world to provide legal MDMA-assisted therapy outside of a clinical trial.
🌟More speakers announced soon!

26 October – 1 November 2026
Avana Byron | Byron Hinterland

Message us for an information pack with further details. Registrations are now open at https://ipat.au
A 10% deposit secures your place.
Limited places available.

There’s growing interest in Acacia within psychedelic research right now.

But across this continent, Acacia is not just chemistry.
It exists within living cultural systems held through relationship, responsibility, lore, and custodianship by Aboriginal peoples for tens of thousands of years.

As psychedelic research expands in Australia, deeper questions need to be asked:

Who is being consulted?
Who benefits?
Who holds cultural authority?

Relationships to Acacia are not universal across Aboriginal communities. Cultural authority is place-based. Different Countries and communities hold different relationships and responsibilities connected to these plants.

Ethical engagement cannot be symbolic consultation after decisions have already been made. It requires genuine relationship with the appropriate Traditional Owners connected to the specific lands, species, and knowledge systems involved.

This means:
• Traditional Owner governance and leadership
• Free, prior and informed consent
• Long-term custodial partnerships
• Equitable benefit-sharing
• Indigenous control over research outcomes and commercialisation pathways
• Respect for what is not meant to be shared

Not everything that can be studied, should be.

This is a call to slow down.
To listen deeply.
To build relationship and agreement before research.

Anything less continues harm.

au

SYDNEY / GADIGAL LANDS
Workshop open to the public

Trauma-Informed Care & Practice: An Indigenous Approach to Developing Worker Skills

📍 National Centre for Indigenous Excellence (NCIE), Redfern
📅 29–30 July 2026

This 2-day immersive training invites you into a deeper way of understanding trauma, healing and practice through Indigenous knowledge systems.

Developed by Prof. Judy Atkinson & Dr Caroline Atkinson, this work weaves together Symptom as History, cultural safety and generational healing, offering a relational and embodied approach to care.

Delivered by IPAT under the .au Sovereign Business Model, honouring Indigenous governance, knowledge and ways of being.

This space is for health practitioners, therapists, educators and community workers who feel called to deepen their cultural competencies and responsiveness, and to learn Indigenous approaches to trauma recovery in ways that are relational, accountable and grounded in Country.

✔️ PACFA-accredited
✔️ Trauma-specific, culturally grounded learning
✔️ Interactive, relational group experience
✔️ Certified training with participant manual
✔️ Limited places

Bookings now open
➡️ https://ipat.au/trainingevents

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander scholarship applications available via the same link.

Come together on Gadigal Lands, learn in relationship, and be part of a way of working that honours new ways of walking together in right relationship, healing and trauma recovery.

NORTHERN NSW / BUNDJALUNG COUNTRY
Trauma-Informed Care & Practice: An Indigenous Approach to Developing Worker Skills

📍 Held on Country at , a beautiful bush property just 10 minutes from Mullumbimby
📅 30–31 May 2026

This 2-day immersive training invites you into a deeper way of understanding trauma, healing and practice through Indigenous knowledge systems.

Developed by Prof. Judy Atkinson & Dr Caroline Atkinson, this work weaves together Symptom as History, cultural safety and generational healing, offering a relational and embodied approach to care.

Delivered by IPAT under the .au Sovereign Business Model, honouring Indigenous governance, knowledge and ways of being.

This space is for health practitioners, therapists, educators and community workers who feel called to deepen their cultural competencies and responsiveness, and to learn Indigenous approaches to trauma recovery in ways that are relational, accountable and grounded in Country.

✔️ PACFA-accredited
✔️ Trauma-specific, culturally grounded learning
✔️ Immersive, on-Country group experience
✔️ Certified training with participant manual
✔️ Limited places

Bookings now open
➡️ https://ipat.au/trainingevents

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander scholarship applications available via the same link.

Come sit on Country, learn in relationship, and be part of a way of working that honours both people and place.

We were delighted to speak with the formidable and the ACRR integration community about Indigenous wisdom in the PAT space, earth connection practices and the importance of community

Thank you to Ros and the ACER community for all your support in the IPAT vision connection, community, reciprocity and reverence in the psychedelic landscape

March 21 is not just Harmony Day. It is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

A day rooted in the memory of the Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa, where people were killed for standing against apartheid, racism and oppression.

In Australia, this day was reframed as “Harmony Day” in 1999 under the government of John Howard, during a time where there was a clear reluctance to name and confront systemic racism in Australia.

The language shifted from eliminating racism to promoting harmony.

And while harmony sounds beautiful, it can also silence truth.

Harmony without truth is not harmony, It is avoidance.

We cannot change what we refuse to acknowledge. In Australia, racism is not in the past. It is embedded in systems, institutions, and everyday experiences for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other black and brown people.

When we choose softer language over honest truth, we risk protecting comfort instead of addressing harm.

Working in Aboriginal communities across this continent, we don’t have the privilege of avoiding that truth. We see the lived realities every day and the ongoing impact of racism that is still not fully acknowledged or named at national level.

So today, we do not look away.
We name it.
We speak to it.
We take responsibility for taking action to change it.

This is a conversation we need to keep having because it is everyone’s business to dismantle racist systems and we cannot change what we continue to soften or avoid.

Real harmony is not built on silence or denial.
It is built on truth, justice, and accountability.

Anything less is not harmony at all.

SYDNEY / GADIGAL LANDS
Trauma-Informed Care & Practice: An Indigenous Approach to Developing Worker Skills
📍 National Centre for Indigenous Excellence (NCIE) Redfern
📅 2–3 May 2026

This 2-day immersive training, developed by Prof. Judy Atkinson & Dr Caroline Atkinson, weaves Indigenous knowledge, Symptom as History, cultural safety and generational healing into a powerful learning experience.

Delivered by IPAT under the .au Sovereign Business Model, honouring Indigenous governance and knowledge systems.

For health practitioners, therapists, educators and community workers wanting to strengthen culturally responsive practice in line with AHPRA expectations.

✔️ PACFA-accredited
✔️ Trauma-specific, culturally grounded learning
✔️ Safe, interactive group experience
✔️ Certified training with participants manual
✔️ Limited places

Bookings now open
➡️ https://ipat.au/trainingevents

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander scholarship applications on the same link.