Music is frequently used in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, but there is no standardized protocol for selecting or implementing it. A systematic review of 36 articles found that 25 mentioned music, mostly in studies of psilocybin and MDMA for depressive disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder. Procedures varied widely across studies, partly because different disorders and substances were investigated, and partly because no uniform guidelines exist. Identifying which features of music are prioritized may help guide future clinical practice and research.
Drawing on Foucault's analysis of power in Discipline and Punish, and its extensions by Deleuze and Mbembe, the article critiques the medicalization and prohibition of psychedelics. It examines how knowledge and practices around drugs were historically constructed between normalization by scientific discourse and criminalization of users. The text argues that contemporary technologies of confinement and panoptic surveillance from disciplinary societies coexist with algorithmic modulation and flow management from control societies, alongside necropolitical genocide that reenacts ancient sovereign power. The history of Western scientific interest in psychedelics illustrates how truth regimes and power technologies silence dissident voices and naturalize inequalities. The article reaffirms the importance of Foucauldian analysis and calls for more critical analyses to regulate psychedelics without reproducing medicalizing and exclusionary logics.
Prohibitionist approaches to psychedelic substances have caused harm, necessitating a clinical and political debate that took place at the First Seminar about Psychedelic Drugs in Rio de Janeiro. The article introduces terminology about psychedelia and presents historical aspects of LSD and MDMA that raise doubts about reports of new hard or inherently dangerous drugs. Using harm reduction as a paradigm for care policies, the seminar emphasizes the urgency of acknowledging individual (set) and environmental (setting) factors in determining the quality of drug users' experiences.