Alcohol and alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire)
May 14, 2025
Hannah Thurgur, Ben Sessa, Laurie Higbed et al.
3 citations
Safety and tolerability data from the first open-label feasibility study of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted psychotherapy for alcohol use disorder was recently published. This paper presents a Bayesian analysis of the impact of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy on treatment success, defined as 2-level reduction in the World Health Organization (WHO) drinking risk at the 3 months...
Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England)
February 1, 2025
Sophie-Athéna Chapron, Guilhem Bonazzi, Laura Di Lodovico et al.
5 citations
In the context of the need to increase treatment options for substance use disorders, recent research has evaluated the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. However, there is an incomplete understanding of psychedelics' effects on craving, a core symptom of addictive disorders and a predictor of substance use and relapse. To determine if the use of psychedelics is associated with changes in...
Psychedelics as Psychiatric Medications
March 1, 2023
Laurie Higbed, Ben Sessa
Abstract Psychedelic compounds offer a unique type of mental health treatment. This chapter considers how psychedelics can be explored as an alternative to the typical maintenance medication for the treatment of symptoms, through using psychedelic medicines in a controlled clinical setting as an adjunct to psychotherapy. In combination with psychotherapy, the psychedelic experience provides the...
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
2023
Aviad Hadar, Jonathan David, Nadav Shalit et al.
93 citations
Psychedelics were used in the treatment of psychiatric conditions prior to their prohibition in the late 1960s. In the past three decades, there is a revived research interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs with expected FDA approvals for treatment of various conditions. Given the exponential scientific growth of this field, we sought to characterize, analyze, and visualize...
Human Psychopharmacology Clinical and Experimental
March 17, 2022
Edward James, Joachim Keppler, Thomas L Robertshaw et al.
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.
Human Psychopharmacology Clinical and Experimental
February 17, 2022
Edward James, Joachim Keppler, Ben Sessa et al.
41 citations
Abstract Objective Reports have indicated possible uses of ayahuasca for the treatment of conditions including depression, addictions, post‐traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and specific psychoneuroendocrine immune system pathologies. The article assesses potential ayahuasca and N,N‐dimethyltryptamine (DMT) integration with contemporary healthcare. The review also seeks to provide a summary of...
J Psychopharmacol
December 13, 2021
Ben Sessa, Jacob S. Aday, Steve O’Brien et al.
18 citations
BACKGROUND: Incorporating 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) as an adjunct to psychotherapy has shown promise in recent years for treating various mental health conditions, particularly those involving trauma. However, concerns about declines in mood and cognition during the days following dosing, also known as 'Blue Mondays', have been raised as limitations to its clinical use. Although...
J Psychopharmacol
February 18, 2021
Ben Sessa, Laurie Higbed, Steve O’Brien et al.
123 citations
First study of safety and tolerability of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine-assisted psychotherapy in patients with alcohol use disorder.
Human Psychopharmacology Clinical and Experimental
June 23, 2020
Edward James, Thomas L Robertshaw, Mathew Hoskins et al.
29 citations
Abstract Objective Research into psychedelic therapy models has shown promise for the treatment of specific psychiatric conditions. Mystical‐type experiences occasioned by psilocybin have been correlated with therapeutic benefits and long‐term improvements in positive mental outlook and attitudes. This article aims to provide an overview of the topic, highlight strengths and weaknesses in...
UNC Libraries
April 22, 2020
Peter J. Hellyer, Luke T. J. Williams, Ben Sessa et al.
1 citation
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), the prototypical “psychedelic,” may be unique among psychoactive substances. In the decades that followed its discovery, the magnitude of its effect on science, the arts, and society was unprecedented. LSD produces profound, sometimes life-changing experiences in microgram doses, making it a particularly powerful scientific tool. Here we sought to examine its...
BMJ Case Rep
July 15, 2019
Ben Sessa, Chloe Sakal, Steve O’Brien et al.
55 citations
First study of safety and tolerability of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted psychotherapy in patients with alcohol use disorder: preliminary data on the first four participants.
Frontiers in Psychiatry
March 20, 2019
Ben Sessa, David Nutt, Laurie Higbed
141 citations
This paper provides a brief review of the history, proposed pharmacological mechanisms, safety issues, and clinical applications of the medicine 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). Most clinical MDMA research in patients to date has focused on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to treat posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this review paper other potential therapeutic applications for MDMA...
Neuropharmacology
November 1, 2018
Ben Sessa
61 citations
Alcohol use disorder represents a serious clinical, social and personal burden on its sufferers and a significant financial strain on society. Current treatments, both psychological and pharmacological are poor, with high rates of relapse after medical detoxification and dedicated treatment programs. The earliest historical roots of psychedelic drug-assisted psychotherapy in the 1950s were...
Psychopharmacology
August 23, 2017
Ben Sessa
92 citations
Given the plethora of new studies and published papers in the scientific press and the increasingly emerging presence of articles about positive psychedelic experiences appearing in the popular media, there is little doubt that we are in the midst of a Psychedelic Renaissance. The classical psychedelic drugs LSD and psilocybin and the entactogen MDMA are showing promise as tools to assist...
Neurotherapeutics
May 5, 2017
Ben Sessa
11 citations
Since the late 1980s the psychoactive drug 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) has had a well-known history as the recreationally used drug ecstasy. What is less well known by the public is that MDMA started its life as a therapeutic agent and that in recent years an increasing amount of clinical research has been undertaken to revisit the drug's medical potential. MDMA has unique...
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
April 1, 2017
Ben Sessa
Treating people with alcohol use disorder has been an important target area for psychedelic research – both in the first studies of the 1950s and during the Psychedelic Renaissance of the last 10 years. To date, most studies have looked at the classical psychedelic drugs as adjuncts to psychotherapy; with attention paid to the psychospiritual aspect of the experience as a central therapeutic...
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
April 11, 2016
Robin Carhart-Harris, Suresh Muthukumaraswamy, Leor Roseman et al.
887 citations
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is the prototypical psychedelic drug, but its effects on the human brain have never been studied before with modern neuroimaging. Here, three complementary neuroimaging techniques: arterial spin labeling (ASL), blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) measures, and magnetoencephalography (MEG), implemented during resting state conditions, revealed marked changes in...
March 8, 2016
Ben Sessa, Eileen Worthley
1 citation
Psychedelic Drug Treatments: Assisting the Therapeutic Process provides information about current and quite viable investigation into reviving and progressing with neurological research that began in the middle of the 20th century and was brought to a halt when certain drugs were banned in the 1970s. Using a question/answer format, the book will introduce you to the way in which the chemical...
Drug Science Policy and Law
March 24, 2015
Ben Sessa, Friederike Meckel Fischer
39 citations
Underground psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has persisted in Europe despite the banning of the substances LSD and MDMA in the 1960s and 1980s, respectively. This article describes the work of a Zurich-based psychotherapist providing individual and group psycholytic psychotherapy, whose practice persisted for several years before she was arrested in 2009. The article provides commentary on...
The British Journal of Psychiatry
2015
Ben Sessa, Matthew W. Johnson
58 citations
Summary After a 40-year hiatus there is now a revisiting of psychedelic drug therapy throughout psychiatry, with studies examining the drugs psilocybin, ketamine, ibogaine and ayahuasca in the treatment of drug dependence. Limitations to these therapies are both clinical and legal, but the possibility of improving outcomes for patients with substance dependency imposes an obligation to research...
The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science
2015
Ben Sessa, David Nutt
36 citations
From its first use 3,4,-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) has been recognised as a drug with therapeutic potential. Research on its clinical utility stopped when it entered the recreational drug scene but has slowly resurrected in the past decade. Currently there is enough evidence for MDMA to be removed from its Schedule 1 status of 'no medical use' and moved into Schedule 2 (alongside...
Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry
2015
Zoë Ellison‐wright, Ben Sessa
7 citations
Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder is a disorder of uncertain aetiology occurring mainly after ‘classical’ hallucinogen use ( ie mescaline, psilocybin, dimethyltryptamine and LSD) use. Here, the authors describe the case of a boy with similar symptoms developing after he reported using cannabis seven times.
Hum Psychopharmacol
March 1, 2014
Rick Doblin, George Greer, Julie Holland et al.
48 citations
A reconsideration and response to Parrott AC (2013) "Human psychobiology of MDMA or 'Ecstasy': an overview of 25 years of empirical research".
Journal of Neuroscience
September 18, 2013
Matthew J. Brookes, David Errtizoe, Ben Sessa et al.
501 citations
Psychedelic drugs produce profound changes in consciousness, but the underlying neurobiological mechanisms for this remain unclear. Spontaneous and induced oscillatory activity was recorded in healthy human participants with magnetoencephalography after intravenous infusion of psilocybin—prodrug of the nonselective serotonin 2A receptor agonist and classic psychedelic psilocin. Psilocybin...
The British Journal of Psychiatry
August 1, 2013
Ben Sessa
Edited by Allan Beveridge, Femi Oyebode and Rosalind Ramsay - LSD: My Problem Child By Albert Hofmann (transl. Jonathan Ott) Oxford University Press. 2013. £24.99 (hb). 248 pp. ISBN: 9780199639410 - Volume 203 Issue 2