Radical Transparency in Psychedelic Therapy: Why I’m Blogging My Journey Underground
- martinyearley
- May 26, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: 2 hours ago
If I'm to be the North-West's best, most transparent, reflective and accountable psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist (PAP) then I believe it is essential to blog the journey. Some might call that reckless: Why document potentially illegal activity? My response to that would be to point out that I have no intention of breaking any laws. Certainly not any serious laws. But I don't call this reckless, I call it radical transparency, ethical responsibility, and an act of service to the psychedelic community - a community that has welcomed and supported me immensely over the years.
I will therefore be offering psychedelic-assisted CBT (and life coaching for non-UK residents) in Faro, Portugal. Contact me for pictures of the location and details of the legality. You may want to read the privacy policy because I will need to retain some data on you for 7 years as per BABCP guidance (personal information, session summaries). I'll do legal due diligence and keep financial records of all costs incurred throughout including flights (budget airline I'm afraid) and I will provide an itemised invoice for any agreed charges. The bulk of the session cost, however, will be based on a "pay what you feel" model. This incentivises me to provide you with the best possible service and we will discuss how I can achieve that on an individual basis.
The most compelling reason to document my journey into PAP work is, quite simply, 'harm reduction'. The health and wellbeing of my clients is as important as my own personal security.
There are already hundreds of undocumented PAPs operating in the UK. This is not necessarily a good thing. Too often, clients are all left without proper integration support, sessions are known to have had unwelcome crossings of sexual boundaries and systems of accountability are absent when things go wrong. Organisations such as the Institute of Psychedelic Therapy and Psychedelic Integration UK attempt to remedy this situation by offering databases of UK-based counsellors and psychotherapists who provide integration support. However, their trust networks and social circles are limited by current law, preventing them from openly collaborating with underground practitioners or vetting those offering unregulated psychedelic services. I am certainly not the judge of which PAPs are of good character, but I am a node on the network as are you.
Together we can close that significant safeguarding gap in our community.
I aim to legally and ethically collaborate with underground practitioners so that I may begin to make known whose psychedelic offerings I would be proud to stand up for in a regulated system.
How, specifically, am I going to achieve this? Carefully I suppose. I do see a lit path which requires two necessary components but it is difficult to explain. The best way I can describe it is imagine both sides of a Möbius strip:
The Web2 Side:
On a practical level, I will need to obey (actually obey, not just navigate) UK law. Luckily, psychoeducation and communication are legal. If they ever become illegal I'll just need to do this job from prison. It's that important; one might even call it a hill to die on because I truly believe mushrooms can save the world. Similarly, Integration sessions are also, obviously, legal. If someone has had a psychedelic experience prior to contacting me then of course I would feel safe helping them process and understand their experiences through standard therapeutic work. Returning to psychoeducation, we could then discuss the necessary knowledge around set and setting that would help them step their game up with the intention of making their next trip (even?) more successful.
Psychedelic ceremonies (if you want to call it a ceremony) would be able to be held in Faro, Portugal. If the UK government deems this worthy of conversation with me then I have already citizenship of Palau and will soon have Irish citizenship and EU membership again too. Hell, I'd even defect to Russia with the way I feel about the UK government currently. The world has gone mad. Absolutely insane. Let's try to heal it with some sincerity.
The Blockchain/Web3 Side:
Some awareness of bitcoin and blockchain are helpful here. Best of all, these communities already exist. I mean who understands the power of community more than a veteran of the 2020-2021 NFT craze? That was when community became a commodity. The victims of those years came in many forms but they have produced an unrivalled camaraderie. The apes, the rabbits, the seals, the cats... There is both real merit to their take on identity and real bond between their members. I feel blessed to have met many of the people from the Web3 world and to have, for a while there, felt directly plugged in to the heartbeat of Flannels and W1 Curates when I lived near London.
Perhaps you will understand immediately when I say "collaborative, Internet-wide strategy towards building out a global infrastructure of trust and care". Another way of describing it is the Web2 responsibility combined with the Web3 technology. An app is coming soon, making session notes blockchain-secure under the privacy layer of Midnight.
My Mission with Underground Therapies
My original mission with 'Underground Therapies' was threefold:
1) To establish digital on-chain identities for each of my potential clients, colleagues and collaborators.
2) To cultivate online (on-chain) and in-person meeting spaces where this community can connect, collaborate and grow.
3) To document and report on the successes and failures of PAP work as a passionate and experienced therapist immersing himself amid an honest and reflective community of peers, patients and supervisors.
But I don't care about any of that anymore. Midnight City is already building something far cooler, and I have already linked two AI agents into working there for me. You can create your own agents there too if you like, for fun, but there is no need. You also don't even need to sign up to this website; just simply come see me in person. Schedule a call first, or drop a message on the contact page.
Mushrooms and blockchain can save the world together by keeping governments accountable because blockchain is essentially a financial ledger that never forgets, but this all only ever has a chance at working when and if the masses can understand how and why it can work. "Stop using the government's money" is not a frivolous call to action; it is an invitation to reconsider and reinvent what you self-determine to be valuable in your life. Do you want to work 37.5 hours every week for the same dosh that a printing press can magic out of thin paper? Or do you want to earn and transact your value in hard money? Once you understand money, you understand corruption. Once you understand corruption, you stop using the government's money.
Join the digital state (you don't have to have MAD but it helps).
Underground Therapies was fundamentally a mission to combine this theory into practice in order to demonstrate that building a better world is possible with a nice and niche example: On-chain psychedelic-assisted therapy and life coaching. Perhaps I bit off more than I could chew.
My Mission with Laissez Therapy
Laissez Therapy comes back to basics and provides an in-person therapy service at my clinic space in Cheshire, UK. Clinical contact is mutually confidential and my practice is patient-led. I specialise myself in working with depression, social anxiety, generalised anxiety and phobias (height, vomit, etc) and will happily offer referrals to other therapists if I believe they are a better suit to your needs. I do not talk about psychedelics with people who do not wish to talk about psychedelics.
If you'd like to have a session with me (psychedelic-assisted or otherwise) I charge between £75-250 for CBT (UK only) and between £1-1-100 for life coaching. I require some personal information if we are going to work together (date of birth, address, GP surgery, emergency contact) and am thusly registered as a data controller in the UK. Please note, I will keep secure clinical records of our sessions on file for 7 years following your discharge as per BABCP expectations (please see privacy policy).
The peer support approach is valid and should be championed. I feel lucky to be able to call upon this decentralised community of supportive humans. Whose names are... coming soon.
A Call to the Community
With my mission stated, I now call upon anybody interested in helping. If any part of this resonates with you—or challenges you—I’d love you to drop a comment or otherwise get in touch. This is uncharted territory, and we need diverse voices, careful minds, and courageous hearts to shape what comes next. If you’re a therapist, harm reductionist, underground facilitator, or simply someone passionate about safer psychedelic practices, I also invite you to reach out.
Sign up at Midnight City and create your AI agent. Create an account on this website too if you fancy. Most of all, drop me the first questions that come to mind below on this blog post. Feel free to also share a bit more about your personal situation in a private message.
We are now empowered with enough education and community intelligence to make informed decisions about our own healing. By documenting this journey, I’m not just providing a service back to the psychedelic community—I’m calling upon a wider network of therapists, harm reductionists, and underground psychonauts to connect, share knowledge, and begin building the infrastructure our community deserves.
Test comment