2179 – Psychedelic Drugs In Psychotherapy. a Revival?
V.M. Barrau-Alonso, J. Sendra-Lopez, N. Benítez-Álvarez, E. Vera-Barrios, A. Hernández-Dorta, G. Díaz-Marrero, Irene González González, P. Quandt, Ramón Gracia-Marco
European Psychiatry 2013 DOI: 10.1016/s0924-9338(13)77054-8 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Review Randomized Placebo-controlled Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 1 |
| Key findings | The authors argue that psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy uses acute drug effects to enhance psychotherapy, with benefits often pronounced within days or weeks but then declining, a phenomenon they term "psychedelic afterglow." They conclude that further blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled research is needed to establish efficacy. |
Abstract
Introduction: Psychedelic drugs were used extensively in psychotherapy in the 1950s to lower psychological defences and facilitate emotional insight. Thousands of research participants were administered hallucinogens in the context of basic clinical research or therapeutic clinical research, resulting in hundreds of publications. Results across studies were ultimately inconclusive due to such variations in methods and a lack of modern controls and experimental rigour. The growing controversy and sensationalism resulted in increasing restrictions on access to hallucinogens throughout the 1960s (ultimately resulting in the placement of the most popular hallucinogens into Schedule I of the 1970 Controlled Substances Act in the United States).
Aims: Renewed human administration research began in the 1990s. Recent clinical studies have administered hallucinogens to evaluate their safety and efficacy in the treatment of psychiatric disorders: specifically, anxiety related to advanced-stage cancer (Grob, 2005), obsessive-compulsive disorder (Moreno, et al., 2006), heroin dependence (Krupitsky, et al., 2007), personal meaning and spiritual significance (Griffiths, et al., 2008), and a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials of LSD for alcoholism (Krebs,et al., 2012).
Results: Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy utilizes the acute psychological effects of psychedelic drugs to enhance the normal mechanisms of psychotherapy. The effects of psychedelic psychotherapy are often very pronounced within several days or weeks after a treatment session, but then these effects quickly decline. This phenomenon was termed a “psychedelic afterglow”.
Conclusions: Fhurther research, blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled, methodology should explore the efficacy of hallucinogens.