BackgroundPhysician burnout is a growing phenomenon in current health systems worldwide. With the emergence of COVID-19, burnout in healthcare is progressively becoming a serious concern. Increasing emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment threaten the effective delivery of healthcare. Compassion fatigue and moral injury are a considerable risk to the...
ABSTRACT As interest in psychedelics as treatments for psychological problems grows, it is important for psychoanalysts to learn about them. Our patients will come to us to discuss their psychedelic experiences; additionally, psychedelics deserve reconsideration as meaningful collaborators with our field, at both the theoretical and clinical levels. After a brief history of these agents, the...
Background Major depressive disorder is often associated with maladaptive coping strategies, including rumination and thought suppression. Aims To assess the comparative effect of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor escitalopram, and the serotonergic psychedelic psilocybin (COMP360), on rumination and thought suppression in major depressive disorder. Method Based on data derived from a...
Psychedelics have seen a resurgence of interest from both the scientific and lay community in recent years. Psychedelics are known for their ability to produce profound perceptual alterations, ego dissolution, and separation from reality in humans. Virtually all research into psychedelics and their mechanism of action has focused on examining effects in the brain, and on consciousness....
The mystical experience is a potential psychological mechanism to influence outcome in psychedelic therapy. It includes features such as oceanic boundlessness, ego dissolution, and universal interconnectedness, which have been closely linked to both symptom reduction and improved quality of life. In this review, 12 studies of psychedelic therapy utilizing psilocybin, ayahuasca, or ketamine were...
Anxiety disorders are the most common type of psychiatric disorders among Western countries. Evidence-based treatment modalities including pharmacological and cognitive-behavioral therapy result in deficient treatment responses. Historical and recent research suggests psychedelic drugs may be efficacious in alleviating anxiety-related symptoms among healthy and clinical populations. The main...
Previous research has found associations between classic psychedelic use and nature-relatedness, but the link between classic psychedelic use and human–animal relations remains largely unexplored. Using data representative of the US adult population, with regard to age, sex and ethnicity (N = 2822), this pre-registered study assessed lifetime classic psychedelic use, ego dissolution during...
Considers whether the impulse to transcend the experiential subject-object division is more predominantly “mystic” (i.e., a radical ego “shattering” which destroys the craving and aversion that produces suffering) or “morbid” (i.e., the same ego dissolution, but experienced in a way that increases suffering). It considers the elaborate geometric designs produced by schizophrenic artists—notably...
In chapter 6 we review recent work on psychedelics on brain function and on religious experiences. 5HT2A receptor signaling systems are covered as is the empirical evidence that transformative effects of psychdelics are linked to ego-dissolution and encounters with superntural agents during the experience.
In this study, we investigate the phenomenology of selftranscendent experiences, in which the usual sense of self is lost. Based on a taxonomy of nine aspects of self and three types of content of consciousness, we compare ten accounts of such experiences acquired through in-depth interviews. Sense of separateness and identification with body and narrative self were reported as lost in all of...