Need Some Psychedelic Advice? Introducing #AskAshley

Introducing #AskAshley

A New Psychedelic Advice Column Bringing Ethics Into the Light

Powered by Psychedelic State(s) of America and Psychedelic Guide Network

Introducing #AskAshley: A New Psychedelic Advice Column Bringing Ethics Into The Light

To Whom it May Concern…

I’m Ashley Carmen, a licensed marriage and family therapist in California and Texas and the founder of Psychedelic Guide Network. My work brings together clinical training, shamanic and ceremonial learning, and a personal interest in making this world just a little bit more of an ethical place.

That interest began long before it became professional. A much younger Ashley was already noticing the ethical distance between people who said they cared for one another. And even so, how they sometimes did things that were.. harmful. That personal thread still runs through the work I do today.

Along the way to get to this point, there have been obvious ethical breadcrumbs from the universe through training programs, facilitator roles, and opportunities to learn in both underground and aboveground psychedelic spaces. Across those experiences, I’ve seen a major need for more attention to how we hold these spaces and how we hold ourselves accountable within them.

My clinical training deeply ingrained the importance of ethics. It also introduced rules, requirements, and an emphasis on protecting a license. Not to mention a ton of fear.. Those standards matter and over time, I’ve come to appreciate how much more is needed to make ethics a meaningful in practice. Knowing the rules doesn’t necessarily prepare us to recognize our own blind spots, navigate a complicated relationship, or hear that something we intended as care caused harm.

What better place to ask the world to hold cleaner space than in a journey space? If nowhere else, let’s aim to keep the healing space clean.

With this ‘Ask Ashley’ column, I desire to normalize these conversations and support the realization that all facilitators are responsible for their ongoing ethics practice. A column can’t resolve the whole of an ethical dilemma, but it can certainly offer direction, useful questions, and perhaps a little insight. Think of it as a map we can explore together, helping you refine and clarify your own way of practicing.

Ethics is a living, breathing thing. It requires commitment after the training ends, attention when a new situation arises, when we realize we missed something, and when someone offers a perspective we hadn’t considered, about us.

The conversation here will include the psychedelic ecosystem at large. I’m interested in our collective culture: who we celebrate, what we overlook, and what we become accustomed to accepting. The ways our communities respond to concerns, share power, and make space for honest feedback all help shape that culture.

We’ll also look closely at individual practitioners and the relationships they build with clients and journeyers. This is where relational accountability becomes very real: in our agreements, our boundaries, our influence, and our willingness to hear how another person experienced our care. Our duty to service belong in that conversation, alongside our impact and our responsibility for what happens next.

And.. this discussion and column is probably coming at the most timely moment ever.

This is the psychedelic renaissance, or so I’ve heard. Our Western culture is figuring out where each piece should fit when it comes to psychedelic medicine. The shift is being built piece by piece, in this very moment, through decisions being made in communities, organizations, and individual relationships.

We get to make ethics the main stage. The foundation of which all other practices sit on.

That includes conferences, festivals, training programs, clinics, living room sessions, AirBnB journeys and recreational spaces. Wherever expanded states exist, there is an opportunity to bring more integrity and accountability to how we gather and care for one another. Expanded states deserve that at the least if you’re asking me. And judging by the title of this column, you are.

May this column help cultivate more virtue in the healing space and keep these experiences clear of the unnecessary shadow for the people who choose to sit with another person and open themselves up. That care also matters for people who don’t yet know what they may be stepping into.

We get to choose practices that help us notice blind spots and address concerns early, alongside meaningful accountability when harm occurs. Not shame and cancel culture, actual corrective processes.

Psychedelic Guide Network is one way I’m working toward that, through education, peer connection, and preventative ethics practice. We help practitioners keep learning about themselves, support each other through insightful containers and make ethical reflection part of the fabric of their being. That’s real ethical maturity.

This column is another place to begin that conversation together.

I’ll bring context as things emerge in our community, along with tools and perspectives we can explore. And I’m inviting you to bring your ethics questions, concerns, curiosities, inquiries, and noticings here.

How do I know when being available to a journeyer is becoming too much? Where does spiritual guidance end and spiritual authority begin? What do I do when something feels off in a space I otherwise love and trust?

Your question can still be unfinished. It may be something you’re wrestling with in your own practice, something you’ve noticed in the wider culture, or something you’re only beginning to find words for.

Let’s have this collective discussion. We can bring these questions out from behind closed doors while protecting the privacy of the people involved. Please leave names and identifying details out of anything you submit.

The shadow deserves to be illuminated and through this corner of the internet, we can bring in more light to the psychedelic field, together.

— Ashley Carmen, LMFT
Founder of Psychedelic Guide Network

Submit Your Question to #AskAshley

Have an ethics question, concern, or noticing you’d like Ashley to explore in a future column? Send it in through the official #AskAshley submission form on the Psychedelic State(s) of America website. Names and identifying details are optional.