A Q&A with Alchemy’s Deidra Somerville
Deidra Somerville is the executive director of the Alchemy Community Therapy Center, a nonprofit psychedelic-therapy clinic that treats underserved populations in Oakland, California. HealingMaps named it one of the best ketamine clinics in the region for striving to create “a world where everyone can access the freeing mental health treatment offered by ketamine and talk therapy.”
Somerville recently discussed her career path that led to Alchemy, the challenges of operating a clinic that in charges as little as $15 per treatment, and the overall role psychedelics can play in healing those who need it most.
You’ve held high-level roles in higher education, nonprofit fundraising, and management consulting, all with a focus on health and human services. What got you started down this path?
I studied social work as a young person because I liked its mission to help and to heal, which is what I understood was important from my ancestors and those who raised me. But then I started taking clinical classes and therapy classes, and I ran from it because I was afraid of attachment. I was afraid of all the trauma I experienced from having a mother who had a lot of issues with clinical depression. I had not resolved any of this yet, so I had to take a step back. But no matter how many times I stepped back, something would suck me back in serendipitously. So my career path has really been about reconciling my relationship with myself first, and then those who I interface with. I had to admit that this was a part of my journey. My own healing had to be part of my journey.
How did that journey lead to psychedelic-assisted therapy and your work with underserved communities?
I can tell you that 2014 and 2015, when there was this rash of killings of black men across the country, had a huge impact on me. Black men were being killed in Baton Rouge, where I have a lot of family ties, in Texas, in Chicago, in New York. I was watching all the replays of the footage. I was watching this trauma play over and over and over and over again. Eric Garner. Trayvon Martin. I mean, I’m the mother of three sons. That was a really horrible time for me. I had difficulty sleeping, I couldn’t focus at work. I was like, I have to do something about this. I need to go back into therapy myself so I can heal. But I needed something different. So I took part in Re-evaluation Counseling, which is a peer-based support community that trains people how to be co-counselors within a framework that understands that what holds us back are the tapes of trauma and past regrets and past hurts that we replay in our minds all the time. This method helps you find a way to unwind those tapes and to expand your capacity to use more of your mind and intelligence toward things you want, instead of being encumbered by things that keep you in prison emotionally.
So I came to a point in my life where I really had to make some serious changes, to shift gears, to say, “What work are you really supposed to be doing?” And the opportunity came up to join this psychedelic clinic in Oakland, and it just made sense to me. So I decided to jump off the boat I was on and swim to another one in the middle of the ocean — and pray that I make it, and pray that the new boat didn’t have holes in it.
And that new boat was the Sage Institute, which you helped rebrand last year as the Alchemy Community Therapy Center. How would you describe its purpose and mission?
We’re here to make sure that psychotherapy and psychedelic-assisted therapy and training is available to those who need it. We serve people in Oakland, and I’m working on a grant from the city right now that would help address the inequity problem here. There’s a lot of disparity in terms of who’s getting access to treatment in mental health. Between the housing and security issues in Oakland and San Francisco, which the whole world knows about, also the food insecurity issues here, there are a lot of folks who have been having a difficult time holding it together. So we’re here to be a part of the solution, to treat the people who really do need it the most.
How does your model work for serving low-income patients? How much do you charge for your services and how do you keep it sustainable?
Well, we’re starting to change this, but since the founding of the organization in 2019, we’ve had clients paying as little as $15 per session for ketamine-assisted therapy. Many are still paying that, although we’re now working to have more clients treated on both the low and high end of our sliding-scale structure. As someone with a lot of management and budget experience, I saw that we needed to revisit the model to ensure it was sustainable. So we are now only accepting new patients at $60 per session as our new minimum fee, while maintaining slots for those who pay less. We’re keeping to this framework so that we see more people, as it will enable us to train and employ more clinicians. At the same time, we’re looking to expand our base of supporters and investors. We’ve had some really wonderful support from the Cohen Foundation, the Mental Insight Foundation, and several others, as well as individual donors who have stepped up and supported us. These resources help us treat those who cannot pay. And I’m looking to expand that and partner directly with the City of Oakland, Alameda County and Marin County. Our central goal is to keep these treatments accessible and affordable for those who are struggling.
You mentioned that you provide training to therapists. How does that work?
Yes, that’s a very important part of what we do. We train unlicensed therapists in KAP (ketamine-assisted psychotherapy) through a very rigorous, 2-year training program. And we actually pay them during this time because they’re treating real patients. Most training programs charge therapists, but ours do not pay us. Because in our model, we’re trying to accomplish two things at once: Increase the population of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ KAP therapists and to treat as many patients as possible. Also, because our mission is to increase access, equity and opportunities for underrepresented populations, we’re focusing on BIPOC and LGBTQIA clinicians right now, which will help us better align with members of that community who come to us for treatment.
How much interest are you seeing from therapists who want to join the training program?
Right now our waitlist for therapists has over 140 people for 10 openings.
That’s incredible. And how about your client numbers? Is the word out about Alchemy, or are you still building awareness?
Oh, the word is definitely out. We used to have a patient waitlist of about 300 people. Unfortunately, some of them were on the list for quite some time. When I started the job last year, one of the first things I did was to audit that list, so we could begin to manage it better. It had become kind of overwhelming. So we said, it’s time to take our hands off our eyes and really look at who needs to be treated, pare down the list, and figure out how to get them seen. It took time, but we managed to reformulate the waitlist, and for the first time in three years we were able to actually start adding more people.
What kind of clients do you serve?
About 70% of our clients have an income of less than $30,000. Many are safely housed in city-run SROs or domestic abuse shelters, but some of our clients do live on the streets. This is what separates us from other ketamine clinics around the country, which don’t tend to deal with people in these conditions. Especially in terms of patient outcomes. When patients have more resources or more support systems at their disposal, the ketamine can help them address more targeted or specific issues. Their outcomes clearly correspond to their needs. But we’re dealing with people who live in really difficult circumstances that make it hard for them to maintain the healing. After they’re treated, they have to return to the same circumstances that drove them to seek treatment in the first place.
So how would you describe the outcomes you’re seeing?
What we’re finding is that many of our clients stay with us for at least a year. And for many of them, this is the longest or most-consistent therapeutic relationship they’ve ever had. So I count that as an outcome, even though it’s a process outcome — not a behavioral outcome. It’s one way to acknowledge that they’re finding some safety and support and healing in the work we do. Also, we’re rated very highly amongst our clients. We have a client survey that we distribute to make sure our services are aligned with their needs. We have an average rating of 3.5 on a 4.0 scale.
Do you believe Alchemy’s nonprofit therapy model would work well other cities?
In my experience as a woman of color growing up in the Bay Area where there were a lot of working class and lower-income people, I don’t believe a one-size-fits-all therapy model is really sustainable, because it wouldn’t be contextualized within the community it serves. So I don’t think the answer is to build little Alchemies in other cities. I think the answer is for the communities themselves to define what they need, what resources they have, and in what capacity they can best serve the people who are struggling the most. What works well for us in Oakland, might not work in Detroit. But there is certainly a value in exchanging information. This is why I’m looking to build a partnership model where we share information and support other nonprofits or government agencies with our learnings. We’re actually doing that right now with a Federally Qualified Health Center that has completely different regulations and policies and internal structure.
As state and federal policies on psychedelics continue to evolve, are you looking forward to the opportunity to offer treatments with other psychedelics, like MDMA or psilocybin?
Yes, that’s in our strategic plan, for sure. And we’re in a good position being in the Bay Area. We have a good relationship with MAPS and other entities that could support us in expanding into different compounds. We actually just recruited new board members who will be very helpful in this area. We’re really happy about our new board, and very much looking forward to that expansion when the time comes. This is such an exciting time to be in this field. We want to make sure we have all the pieces in place so we can take advantage of every available treatment option to help those who truly have no other place to go.
