Introduction: Psychedelics and meditation are increasingly used for therapeutic and wellness purposes. However, research into adverse effects (AEs) has been limited, without adequate investigation of the nature, clinical characteristics, and diversity of persisting challenges following psychedelic use and meditation practice. This study aims to better characterize the clinical and contextual...
This study is testing a novel neuromodulation method capable of directly targeting deep brain regions—temporal interference (TI)—to enhance emotion regulation. Pilot data show that, compared to sham stimulation, TI targeting the ventral striatium (VS) during breath-focused mindfulness (BFM) enhances neural markers of reward processing (measured via electroencephalography, EEG) and reduces...
In recent decades, millions of people globally have taken up Buddhist spiritual and secularized meditation practices, such as mindfulness, with the aim of improving their quality of life and well-being. Practitioners are recommended to continue meditating regularly for the long term; however, the effects of regular meditation practice after introductory instruction remain scientifically...
Demoralization, a syndrome of helplessness, hopelessness, and loss of meaning and chronic pain are common sources of distress in early palliative care. Psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) is an emerging intervention with preliminary data suggesting improvements in pain and demoralization. To date, PAT has not been studied among people living with both demoralization and chronic pain nor has it...
Psychedelic-assisted therapies (PAT) can provoke personally meaningful spiritual or existential experiences in patients; these experiences have been associated with improved outcomes across several treatment targets and populations. The need for spiritual and religious competence, though present across the spectrum of psychotherapeutic practice, is especially strong in psychedelic-assisted...
Abstract Grief is a profound life stressor that impacts multiple psychological outcomes. Mind-body interventions like Mindfulness Training (MT) and Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) show promise for addressing negative psychological sequelae of grief. The present study investigated the effects of MT and PMR on secondary outcomes of grief including depressive symptoms, negative and positive...
Spiritual health practitioners (SHPs), also known as healthcare chaplains, are increasingly involved in facilitating psychedelic-assisted therapies in clinical trials and community settings. Although the motivations of therapeutic practitioners are known to impact clinical decision-making and treatment outcomes, little research has investigated what drives SHPs to pursue this work. This...
Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are increasingly used in clinical and community settings and show significant potential to address a broad range of physical and mental health outcomes. This potential has led to calls for ever greater implementation of MBIs internationally, particularly with vulnerable populations and in low-resource settings. However, the effectiveness of MBIs has not...
Psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) is an experimental treatment with transformative promise. Developing standards for PAT psychotherapy protocols is a priority, but psychotherapeutic protocol components of PAT have been subjected to little rigorous research. This study was designed to assess protocol components in a trial of PAT. The Enhanced Critical Incident Technique (E-CIT) was used to...
Within mindfulness-based programs (MBPs), mixed results have been found for the role of childhood trauma as a moderator of depression outcomes. Furthermore, childhood trauma and PTSD symptoms have been identified as possible risk factors for the occurrence of meditation-related adverse effects (MRAE). The present research examined multiple forms of childhood trauma and PTSD symptoms as...
Social attitudes, policy, and perceptions of psychedelics are currently undergoing considerable change. Growing public salience of psychedelics has been accompanied by the emergence of conferences focused on psychedelic education and dialogue. Attendees at such events compose an important group of stakeholders in psychedelic science and practice; their views of psychedelics can be valuable for...
Psychedelics have shown early evidence for a range of benefits and low harm profiles in extant research. However, adverse effects (AEs) research in psychedelics has been limited, leading to underspecified AE profiles, inconsistent measurement, and potential undercounting of AEs. The development of safe, effective psychedelic therapies and treatments for AEs when they occur requires a thorough...
To address the challenge of predicting psychological response to a psychosocial intervention we tested the possibility that baseline gene expression profiles might provide information above and beyond baseline psychometric measures. The genomics strategy utilized individual level inferences of transcription factor activity to predict changes in loneliness and affect in response to two...
Objective: Despite considerable research examining the efficacy of psychedelic-assisted therapies (PATs) for treating psychiatric disorders, assessment of adverse events (AEs) in PAT research has lagged. Current AE reporting standards in PAT trials are poorly calibrated to features of PAT that distinguish it from other treatments, leaving many potential AEs unassessed. Methods: A...
Mounting evidence supports the role of spiritual, existential, religious, and theological components in mediating psychedelic-assisted therapy, yet integration of these elements into the clinical setting is lagging. Although psychedelic-assisted therapy commonly produces spiritually, existentially, religiously, or theologically relevant experiences for patients, these have not been...
Objective: Extensive research suggests that short-term meditation interventions may hold therapeutic promise for a wide range of psychosocial outcomes. In response to calls to subject these interventions to more methodologically rigorous tests, a randomized controlled trial tested the effectiveness of a mindfulness meditation intervention and a compassion meditation intervention against an...
Over the last decade, numerous interventions and techniques that aim to engender, strengthen, and expand compassion have been created, proliferating an evidence base for the benefits of compassion meditation training. However, to date, little research has been conducted to examine individual variation in the learning, beliefs, practices, and subjective experiences of compassion meditation. This...
Mindfulness has seen an extraordinary rise as a scientific construct, yet surprisingly little is known about how it manifests behaviorally in daily life. The present study identifies assumptions regarding how mindfulness relates to behavior and contrasts them against actual behavioral manifestations of trait mindfulness in daily life. Study 1 (N = 427) shows that mindfulness is assumed to...