International Journal of Whole Person Care
August 9, 2026
Houman Farzin
This presentation will review the history of scientific research into the use of psychedelic medicines for the treatment of existential distress due to life-threatening illnesses, it will then outline the current state of affairs in North America, and conclude with exploring the implications it will have on the future of palliative care. Despite the significant advances in the field of...
Journal of Pain and Symptom Management
August 1, 2026
Stefan Aguiar, Mary Makarious, Orly Lipsitz et al.
Depression and existential distress are highly prevalent among patients with advanced cancer, and there is growing evidence for ketamine as a rapidly acting antidepressant in the population, but few studies have examined existential distress outcomes with ketamine treatment. The INKeD-PC trial demonstrated efficacy of intranasal racemic ketamine for depression in patients with cancer receiving...
Open Science Framework
July 17, 2026
Stephen P. Lewis
Objective: The objective of this narrative review is to understand what forms of spirituality screening and spiritual support are available to individuals with serious or life-threating illness involved in psychedelic-assisted therapies. Introduction: In addition to physical pain related to disease and treatment processes, people encountering serious illness frequently experience psychological...
Medycyna Paliatywna
July 15, 2026
Maciej Sulerzycki, Katarzyna Pomykała, Katarzyna Giemza et al.
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the therapeutic use of psychedelics. In palliative medicine, they are being considered as an alternative approach to treating depression, existential distress, and chronic pain conditions. This review presents current literature on the use of psychedelic substances such as psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide,...
medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences
July 14, 2026
Ali J Zarrabi, Tanja Mletzko, George H. Grant et al.
Demoralization, a syndrome of helplessness, hopelessness, and loss of meaning and chronic pain are common sources of distress in early palliative care. Psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) is an emerging intervention with preliminary data suggesting improvements in pain and demoralization. To date, PAT has not been studied among people living with both demoralization and chronic pain nor has it...
International Journal of Drug Policy
July 6, 2026
Sarah Kratina, Robert Schwartz, Carol Strike et al.
Canada's evolving attitudes toward psychedelic interventions in palliative and end-of-life care reflect a departure from historically prohibitionist policies and an emerging recognition of their therapeutic potential for individuals facing end-of-life distress. This shift parallels international regulatory developments in jurisdictions such as the United States, Australia and parts of Europe,...
BMC Medicine
July 6, 2026
Hannah Adler, Rebecca Filipic, Dr Maria Gonzalez et al.
BACKGROUND: Existential distress is commonly experienced by people with cancer, yet there are limited treatment options. The therapeutic potential for psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) utilising psilocybin for this cohort is underexplored, with emerging literature showing clinical improvements in wellbeing. In Australia there is limited knowledge on healthcare professionals' (HCPs') attitudes,...
Current opinion in oncology
July 1, 2026
Fatima Zohra Moujahid, Olivier Taymans
Psychological and existential distress are common across the cancer trajectory and can impair quality of life, treatment adherence, and family functioning. Although psychosocial and pharmacological interventions provide meaningful support, their overall effects are often modest. This review examines the emerging role of psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) as a potential approach to better...
Australasian psychiatry : bulletin of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists
June 5, 2026
Osama Bhatti, Mohammad Qasim Latifi
BackgroundPsychiatry has long maintained an ambivalent relationship with religion and spirituality, often acknowledging their relevance while remaining cautious about clinical engagement.ObjectivesThis article examines the historical, conceptual, and clinical tensions surrounding spirituality in psychiatry and explores how contemporary psychedelic research has renewed attention to meaning and...
Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland)
June 3, 2026
Michel Dorval, Virginie Audet-Croteau, Sue-Ling Chang et al.
Background/Objectives: Psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) is a promising intervention to alleviate existential distress among patients with advanced cancer receiving palliative care. However, evidence on how to integrate PAT into routine oncology and palliative care services remains scarce. This study aimed to examine real-world PAT implementation, identify factors influencing adoption, and...
PLoS One
2025
Eirini K. Argyri, Jules Evans, David Luke et al.
27 citations
Psychedelic induced mystical experiences have been largely assumed to drive the therapeutic effects of these substances, which may in part be mediated by changes in metaphysical beliefs. However, there is growing evidence that psychedelic experiences can also trigger long lasting distress. Studies of persisting difficulties suggest a high prevalence of ontological challenges (related to the way...
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
September 11, 2024
Sivan Schipper, Kabir Nigam, Yasmin Schmid et al.
34 citations
Implications for practice Psychedelic-assisted therapy with classical psychedelics (psilocybin, LSD) may be effective for treating anxiety, depression, and possibly existential distress, in people facing a life-threatening disease. Psychedelic-assisted therapy seemed to be well tolerated, with no treatment-emergent serious adverse events reported in the studies included in this review. However,...
Palliative Medicine
January 22, 2024
Louis Plourde, Sue-Ling Chang, Houman Farzin et al.
22 citations
Background: Internationally, there is a growing interest in the potential benefits of psilocybin-assisted therapy to treat existential distress at the end of life. However, the social acceptability of this therapy is not yet well known. Aim: This study assesses the social acceptability of the medical use of psilocybin to treat existential distress at the end of life. Design: An online survey...
Palliative & Supportive Care
August 1, 2023
Xuepeng Jing, Nicholas Hoeh, David B Menkes
18 citations
People with terminal illnesses often experience psychological distress and associated disability. Recent clinical trial evidence has stimulated interest in the therapeutic use of psychedelics at end of life. Much uncertainty remains, however, mainly due to methodological difficulties that beset existing trials. We conducted a scoping review of pipeline clinical trials of psychedelic treatment...
Neuropharmacology
April 2, 2023
Farah Z Zia, Michael H. Baumann, Sean J Belouin et al.
28 citations
Chronic pain is a leading cause of disability, reduced productivity, healthcare seeking behavior, and a contributor to opioid overdose in the United States. For many people, pain can be satisfactorily managed by existing medicines and comprehensive psychosocial treatments. For others, available treatments are either ineffective or not acceptable, due to side effects and concerns about risks....
Cancers
January 7, 2023
Joshua D. Rosenblat, Froukje E. deVries, Zoe Doyle et al.
49 citations
Antidepressants require several weeks for the onset of action, a lag time that may exceed life expectancy in palliative care. Ketamine has demonstrated rapid antidepressant effects, but has been minimally studied in cancer and palliative care populations. Herein, the objective was to determine the feasibility, safety, tolerability and preliminary efficacy of intranasal racemic ketamine for...
Current geriatrics reports
2023
Emily Whinkin, Moira Opalka, Conor Watters et al.
26 citations
This review article summarizes clinically and socially relevant developments over the past five years in the therapeutic use of the classical tryptamine psychedelic substance psilocybin, with respect to the common challenges faced by palliative care patients and their care teams. Psilocybin is available in whole fungal and isolated forms but is not yet approved for therapeutic use in the United...
Neuropharmacology
September 15, 2022
S Ross, M Agrawal, Roland R. Griffiths et al.
69 citations
Psychiatric and existential distress commonly occur in advanced cancer and other serious, life-threatening or end-of-life medical illnesses and are associated with poor medical and psychiatric outcomes. Currently available treatment modalities in this patient population, including medication and psychotherapy, are limited in effectiveness, especially regarding existential distress. The lack of...
Journal of Palliative Medicine
August 1, 2022
William E Rosa, Zachary Sager, Megan Miller et al.
49 citations
Psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) is a burgeoning treatment with growing interest across a variety of settings and disciplines. Empirical evidence supports PAT as a novel therapeutic approach that provides safe and effective treatment for people suffering from a variety of diagnoses, including treatment-resistant depression, substance use disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Within...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2022
David B. Yaden, Sandeep M. Nayak, Natalie Gukasyan et al.
31 citations
End of life and palliative care has improved in recent decades but the psychopharmacological options available to clinicians and patients in these contexts remain limited. In particular, psychological factors such as depression, existential distress, and well-being remain challenging to address with current medications. Here, we review recent research on the use of psychedelics in clinical...
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
July 16, 2021
Coryn E. Mayer, Virginia Lebaron, Kimberly Acquaviva
17 citations
There is a growing body of research suggesting that palliative care patients coping with existential distress may benefit from psilocybin. However, there is a large gap regarding the perceptions of palliative care providers who may provide education, counseling services, recommendations, and/or prescriptions for psilocybin if it is decriminalized, commercialized, and/or federally rescheduled...
ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science
March 18, 2021
Stephen Ross, Gabrielle Agin-Liebes, Sharon L. Lo et al.
133 citations
People with advanced cancer are at heightened risk of desire for hastened death (DHD), suicidal ideation (SI), and completed suicide. Loss of Meaning (LoM), a component of demoralization, can be elevated by a cancer diagnosis and predicts DHD and SI in this population. We completed a randomized controlled trial in which psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy (PAP) produced rapid and sustained...
Journal of Psychopharmacology
January 9, 2020
Gabrielle Agin-Liebes, Tara C. Malone, Matthew M. Yalch et al.
353 citations
Background: A recently published randomized controlled trial compared single-dose psilocybin with single-dose niacin in conjunction with psychotherapy in participants with cancer-related psychiatric distress. Results suggested that psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy facilitated improvements in psychiatric and existential distress, quality of life, and spiritual well-being up to seven weeks prior...
Journal of holistic nursing : official journal of the American Holistic Nurses' Association
March 1, 2019
William E Rosa, Stephanie Hope, Marianne Matzo
27 citations
The fields of palliative and holistic nursing both maintain a commitment to the care of the whole person, including a focus on spiritual care. Advanced serious illness may pose a plethora of challenges to patients seeking to create meaning and purpose in their lives. The purpose of this article is to introduce scholarly dialogue on the integration of entheogens, medicines that engender an...