Experiences of psychedelics and psychosis were deeply entangled in scientific practices in the mid-20th century, from uses of psychedelic drugs that could model psychosis, to detailed phenomenological comparisons of endogenous and drug-induced madness. After the moral panic of the 1960s shut down psychedelic research, however, these two phenomena became disentangled. In the decades following,...
Explicit and implicit psychoanalytic assumptions concerning the analytic cure include the old "insight/interpretation" versus "relation/experience" duality. A synthesis of these two stances, grounded in recognition of the long denied yet central mystical facet of psychoanalysis and the crucial role of words in the "talking cure" that psychoanalysis still is, recognizes these two aspects of...
Introduction Alcohol use disorder is a difficult-to-treat psychiatric disorder and a major burden on public health. Existing treatment efficacy is moderate, and relapse rates are high. Preliminary findings suggest that psilocybin, a psychedelic compound, can safely and reliably occasion highly meaningful experiences that may spur a positive change in drinking behaviour when administered in a...
Emerging research suggests that the use of serotonergic psychedelics may increase feelings of connection with the natural world. However, little is known about why this might be the case. Psychedelics often elicit self-transcendent positive emotions (STPE), and recent work has provided preliminary evidence suggesting that several of these emotions may have a causal influence on people's...
Anxiety associated with life-threatening illness (LTI) is a pervasive mental health issue with a wide impact. A spectrum of traditional pharmacotherapies and psychotherapies are available, but offer varying success in reducing symptoms and improving quality of life. We explore a novel therapy for this condition by assessing prominent thematic elements from participant narrative accounts of a...
Mental health conditions in childhood and adolescence are increasing in the U.S. population and require early intervention, as highlighted by a recent Surgeon General’s Advisory on Protecting Youth Mental Health. These health issues, which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, impair functioning, and may lead to longer term reductions in quality of life. Young adolescents are likely...
Participants in MDMA- and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy often emerge from these treatments with new beliefs about themselves and the world. Studies have linked changed beliefs with mystical experiences reported by some participants during drug sessions. While there has been some debate about the epistemic value of drug-induced mystical experiences, and about the need for consent to...
This book investigates the connections between exceptional experiences of Christ's presence and ordinary devotion to Christ in the late medieval West. Unsettling the notion that experiences of seeing Christ's figure or hearing Christ speak are simply exceptional events that happen at singular moments, the book reveals the entanglements between these experiences and those that occur through the...
Through my contribution in this symposium on subjective time, I wish to bring attention to the body. The physiological processes of the body are a necessary prerequisite for understanding how we, as humans, perceive time on the scale of seconds to minutes. My talk will proceed as follows: (1) First I will introduce the standard cognitive model of time perception and I will speak about some...
We thank Bowdle et al.1 for their interest in our article,2 and for the important issue they raise, paraphrased as follows: what is the best anthropocentric description of the "mind-altering" effects of a heterogeneous group of compounds and drugs that act at the brain and cause significant changes in mental state. The group of drugs that we are referring to includes N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA)...