JME Practical Bioethics
July 1, 2026
Christopher Poppe, Chiara Caporuscio, Dimitris Repantis
Psychedelic treatments hold significant therapeutic promise for various psychiatric conditions. However, their unique therapeutic setting with psychedelic substance dosing sessions presents a particular ethical issue concerning patient autonomy. This article explores the ethics of limiting personal autonomy and freedom of movement during dosing sessions due to concerns for physical safety....
Journal of Medical Ethics
March 10, 2026
Chiara Caporuscio
The literature on psychedelic experiences often highlights their transformative potential. This raises ethical questions about informed consent in psychedelic-assisted therapy: if the altered state of consciousness induced by psychedelic drugs can profoundly alter a person's value system in ways that are epistemically inaccessible to them beforehand, it is unclear whether their informed consent...
Psychological Medicine
2025
Chiara Caporuscio, Christopher Poppe, Astrid Gieselmann et al.
9 citations
Abstract Based on promising preliminary results from clinical trials, it seems likely that psychedelic substances (classic serotonergic psychedelics, such as psilocybin, and entactogens, such as MDMA) will be introduced into psychiatry as psychedelic-assisted therapy. This also raises a range of ethical questions that urgently need to be addressed before widespread roll-out in society. This...
Curr Top Behav Neurosci
November 2, 2024
Chiara Caporuscio, Sascha Benjamin Fink
7 citations
Belief change is crucial to therapeutic benefit in psychedelic-assisted therapy as well as in more traditional forms of therapy. However, the use of psychedelics comes with a few unique challenges that require extra caution. First, drastic belief changes may occur faster than in regular therapy. Facing radical and transformative insights all at once rather than through a gradual process of...
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences
May 2, 2022
Chiara Caporuscio, Sascha Benjamin Fink
1 citation
This special issue focuses on the Philosophy of Psychedelics (OUP 2021) by Chris Letheby in the form of a book symposium. Introduced by Matthew Johnson (2022), Letheby presents the main claims of this book that explores the apparent conflict between psychedelic therapy and naturalism in a précis (Letheby, 2022a). Seven contributions criticize, expand or comment on Letheby's arguments,...
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences
January 25, 2022
Chiara Caporuscio
9 citations
Chris Letheby’s defence of psychedelic therapy hinges on the premise that psychedelic-facilitated insights about the self are in a better epistemic position than those about the external world. In this commentary, I argue that such a claim is not sufficiently defended. More precisely, I argue that one element is underexplored in Letheby’s otherwise compelling picture: namely, that unlike new...