The Psychedelic Guide - by Valeria McCarroll (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Cultivating integrity and ethical awareness in psychedelic healing

- Defines a comprehensive psychospiritual framework for psychedelic guiding rooted in embodiment, nondual wisdom, and social justice

- Explains how healing individual trauma contributes to collective and cultural transformation

- Guides you to cultivate ethical presence, right relationship, and inner guidance as the foundation of healing and guiding others

As psychedelics enter more clinical and therapeutic settings, the role of the psychedelic guide is expanding. Existing models often overlook the transpersonal, ethical, and social dimensions essential to this work. In this context, Valeria McCarroll asks the central question--who will guide the guides?--and offers a radical reimagining of what it means to hold space for transformation.

Drawing on decades of clinical experience, transpersonal psychology, somatics, and traditions of nondual wisdom, McCarroll offers a psychospiritual framework that brings depth, presence, and accountability to guiding. She situates psychedelic work within a wider movement of cultural renewal and defines guiding as both a personal calling and a social responsibility, where the guide becomes a healer within society and a bridge between individual healing and collective liberation.

The author looks at desire as a force for liberation, imagination as a tool for healing, and rites of passage as modes of initiation. Through guided reflection and practical applications, she equips psychedelic guides to deepen their self-awareness, navigate power and ethics, and translate mystical experiences into grounded practices. Through this process, you will learn how to transform insight into appropriate action.

The Psychedelic Guide offers the foundation needed in a field undergoing rapid expansion. It is a grounded, comprehensive manual for those called to facilitate safe, therapeutic, and sacred journeys.

About the Author

Valeria McCarroll, PhD, LMFT, is a psychedelic educator, writer, and therapist whose work integrates transpersonal psychology, somatics, and nondual wisdom with social and transformative justice. She is teaching faculty in the Department of Research Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), and maintains a private practice in Northern California.