Psychologists petition to create a psychedelic science division within the APA

A group of psychologists and researchers has launched an October 2026 petition to form a Division of Psychedelic Science and Practice within the American Psychological Association (APA), inviting APA members and fellows to sign in support of giving the field an official home inside the nation’s largest psychological organization.

If approved, the group would become the APA’s 55th active division. The association has 56 numbered divisions, two of which are vacant, and has not added a new division since the creation of Division 56 (Trauma Psychology).

Under Article VI of the APA Bylaws, establishing a new division requires petition signatures from at least 1% of the association’s members, followed by a two-thirds vote of the APA Council of Representatives at its mid-winter meeting.

Even then, an initial vote is only the start: a newly approved division enters a candidacy period and must report back to the Council before receiving final approval. Council approval is not automatic; in 2014, the Council declined to approve a proposed Society for Technology and Psychology after opponents cited a bylaws provision stating that new divisions should not be inimical to existing ones.

In their petition, the organizers point to two decades of advances in scientific research, professional training, clinical implementation, and public policy, including growing federal regulatory attention to psychedelic medicine. Those developments, the petition argues, have established psychedelic science and practice as “an enduring area of psychological inquiry rather than an emerging niche.”

The effort comes amid a broader scientific and medical push to test psychedelics as mental health treatments. Over the past 20 years, major academic medical centers have opened dedicated psychedelic research units, and clinical trials have tested compounds such as psilocybin and MDMA alongside psychotherapy for treatment-resistant depression, substance use disorders, cancer-related distress, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Still, the field faces regulatory hurdles: the Food and Drug Administration has not approved any classic psychedelic or MDMA therapy for clinical use, and in August 2024 the agency declined to approve Lykos Therapeutics’ application for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, citing concerns over trial design and safety data.

Even so, federal activity has continued in 2026, with the FDA issuing final clinical trial guidance for psychedelic drugs, granting priority review vouchers to several psilocybin and methylone development programs following an April 2026 presidential executive order, and receiving a resubmitted MDMA application from Lykos’s successor, Resilient Pharmaceuticals, in August 2026.

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According to the petition, the proposed division would give psychologists a dedicated forum to study how psychedelic treatments work, how patients are screened and assessed, how therapeutic preparation and post-session integration are conducted, and what ethical and societal questions the treatments raise.

A central argument of the petition is that the psychological dimensions of psychedelic care do not fit neatly within pharmacology or prescribing frameworks alone. While APA Division 55 (Society for Prescribing Psychology) focuses on prescribing and psychopharmacology within a medical model, the petitioners write that their proposed division would examine “altered states of consciousness, therapeutic mechanisms of change, preparation and integration processes,” along with cultural and ethical issues and “the psychological factors that mediate outcomes.”

“Central among psychology’s contributions is its capacity to investigate how altered states of consciousness (occasioned within structured, therapeutic, and ethically supported environments) influence cognition, emotion, behavior, learning, memory, meaning-making, therapeutic processes, and integration.”

Petition for the APA Division of Psychedelic Science and Practice

Answering those questions, the petitioners argue, is necessary to translate research findings into safe, ethical, and equitable clinical care. Rather than replacing or duplicating existing divisions, the proposed body is designed to serve as “interdisciplinary connective tissue” within the APA, drawing members who hold primary affiliations across 13 listed divisions, among others, including clinical, counseling, military, humanistic, health, addiction, prescribing, and trauma psychology, as well as Division 28 (Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse).

The organizers write that the division would act as a “translational bridge between basic science and actionable frameworks for practicing psychologists.” It would also support APA-aligned continuing education and “emerging clinical competency frameworks” for patient selection, preparation, and integration. In addition, the petition says the division would “foster thoughtful discussion regarding emerging best practices in harm reduction and ethical guidance” for nonprescribing clinicians whose patients use psychedelics on their own or outside of clinical settings, while offering a venue to weigh ethical, cultural, and regulatory questions.

In keeping with Article VI of the APA Bylaws, the group would operate as a member-led scholarly and professional community rather than a credentialing body. The petition notes that the division would not grant clinical licenses, specialty recognition, certifications, or prescribing authority, and that any educational materials or consensus recommendations it produces would remain separate from official APA policy.

Under APA Association Rule 100-2.1, each of the 10 members of the steering committee has pledged a continuing interest in the division and agreed to accept membership if it is established. The committee includes nine psychologists and a doctoral student in transpersonal psychology whose backgrounds span academic clinical trials, addiction and trauma treatment, military mental health, and state and national psychological associations. At least two committee members, Brian Richards and Chantelle Thomas, also have employment, consulting, or ownership ties in the psychedelic therapy sector.

Matthew W. Johnson, PhD recently joined the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University to lead a new research program focused on psychiatric and substance use disorders, following a tenure at Sheppard Pratt and more than two decades at Johns Hopkins University beginning in 2004. Described in his professional biographies as one of the world’s most widely published experts on psychedelics, Johnson authored the 2008 safety guidelines for human hallucinogen research, contributed to Johns Hopkins studies of psilocybin for cancer-related distress and depression, and led pioneering trials on psilocybin for tobacco addiction. In 2021, he received the first federal grant in 50 years for a treatment study with a classic psychedelic. He is also a past president of APA Division 28 (Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse).

Richard T. Barnett, PsyD, MSCP, LADC is a licensed clinical psychologist, licensed alcohol and drug counselor, and clinical psychopharmacologist in private practice in Stowe, Vermont. He served as president of APA Division 55 (Society for Prescribing Psychology) in 2020, served as president of the Vermont Psychological Association from 2011 to 2014, and chaired Vermont’s Psychedelic Therapy Advisory Group, which was established by Act 126 in 2024. Trained in psychedelic therapy through the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and in ketamine therapy through the Polaris Insight Center and the Psychedelic Research and Training Institute, he co-founded the Psychedelic Society of Vermont and founded the addiction recovery nonprofit CARTER, Inc. in 2015.

Christopher R. Nicholas, PhD is a clinical psychologist and associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, as well as a faculty member in UW-Madison’s Transdisciplinary Center for Research in Psychoactive Substances. He studies psilocybin, MDMA, 5-MeO-DMT, and ketamine for addiction, PTSD, chronic pain, and depression, including studies of psilocybin for methamphetamine and opioid use disorders. He also served as a site co-principal investigator and therapist on MAPS’ Phase 3 trial of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for severe PTSD.

Brian D. Richards, PsyD is a clinical psychologist and Experiential Medicine Program Development Director at Gladstone Psychiatry and Wellness. The son of psychedelic researcher Bill Richards, PhD, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit, where he worked on psilocybin studies for cancer patients, and later served as a lead psychologist on a simultaneous high-dose group psilocybin trial with cancer patients at the Bill Richards Center for Healing in Rockville, Maryland, affiliated with Sunstone Therapies.

Chantelle Thomas, PhD is a clinical psychologist and executive clinical director of Windrose Recovery, a residential addiction treatment center in Wisconsin. She has worked on University of Wisconsin clinical trials investigating psilocybin for addiction and depression and MDMA for PTSD, and serves as a supervisor and trainer on MAPS-sponsored MDMA trials. According to financial disclosures accompanying a Division 12 (Society of Clinical Psychology) webinar, she has served as a consultant or educator for Lykos, MindMed, the Usona Institute, Fluence, and Polaris, and is part owner of Integrata.

Ronit Kishon, PhD is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry) at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She provides psychological support to patients with treatment-resistant depression in a psilocybin clinical trial at the Depression Evaluation Service at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. In 2025, she and Yael Cycowicz co-authored a perspective article in Frontiers in Psychiatry titled “Psychedelic therapy: bridging neuroplasticity, phenomenology, and clinical outcomes.”

Mark Bates, PhD is a clinical psychologist and retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel. He was an airlift pilot for his first nine years on active duty before becoming a clinical psychologist, earning his PhD at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and later directing the Resilience and Prevention Directorate at the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury. He was also lead author of a 2010 paper on psychological fitness written as part of the military’s Total Force Fitness framework.

Sheila H. Gardner, PhD is a licensed counseling psychologist practicing in Durham, New Hampshire.

Terence Penn, PhD is a clinical psychologist who earned his doctorate from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School before joining the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research as a postdoctoral fellow.

Abi Dorhosti is a 25-year military veteran who served as a commander in the U.S. Air Force. She is the founder of the Amistar Foundation and a PhD student in transpersonal psychology at Sofia University.