AJN American Journal of Nursing
February 19, 2026
Liz Braun, Alison Colbert
Ketamine has emerged as a promising intervention for treatment-resistant mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder. With rising global mental health burdens and the limitations of existing pharmacological treatments, ketamine's novel mechanism of action provides a potential alternative for individuals who have not responded to traditional therapies....
AJN American Journal of Nursing
November 21, 2023
MDMA therapy for PTSD. Those suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may have a new treatment option—psychedelic therapy. In a confirmatory randomized controlled trial with 104 participants, researchers found that 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted therapy reduced symptoms and functional impairment in people with moderate to severe PTSD. Their findings add to a...
AJN American Journal of Nursing
May 19, 2021
Diane Szulecki
Figure: This month's cover features a colorized magnetic resonance imaging scan of a human brain—a nod to Penn and colleagues' article “Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy,” which presents an overview of a growing field that nurses are positioned to be part of. Photo by Daisy Daisy / Shutterstock.This month's cover features a colorized magnetic resonance imaging scan of a human brain—a nod to Penn and...
AJN American Journal of Nursing
May 19, 2021
Betsy Todd
Editor's note: From its first issue in 1900 through to the present day, AJN has unparalleled archives detailing nurses' work and lives over more than a century. These articles not only chronicle nursing's growth as a profession within the context of the events of the day, but also reveal prevailing societal attitudes about women, health care, and human rights. Today's nursing school curricula...
AJN American Journal of Nursing
May 16, 2021
Andrew Penn, Caroline Dorsen, Stephanie Hope et al.
40 citations
Psychedelics are a class of psychoactive substances that were studied extensively between 1943 and 1970 as potential therapies for treating a host of mental health disorders, including addiction. Despite promising early results, U.S. psychedelic research was halted in the early 1970s with the enactment of the Controlled Substances Act. As the field of psychedelic-assisted therapy develops,...