Background: Over the last two decades, a number of studies have highlighted the potential of psychedelic therapy. However, questions remain to what extend these results translate to naturalistic samples, and how contextual factors and the acute psychedelic experience relate to improvements in affective symptoms following psychedelic experiences outside labs/clinics. The present study sought to...
Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has established antidepressant effects. Cannabis users appear to expect high doses administered in a session much like psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to create comparable subjective effects. The current studies explored expectations of antidepressant effects of such cannabis-assisted sessions to replicate and extend previous work. Users not only expected a...
Iboga and its primary alkaloids, ibogaine and noribogaine, have been of interest to researchers and practitioners, mainly due to their putative efficacy in treating substance use disorders (SUDs). For many SUDs, still no effective pharmacotherapies exist. Distinct psychoactive and somatic effects of the iboga alkaloids set them apart from classic hallucinogens like LSD, mescaline, and...
Scientific ReportsJune 28, 2022Pascale Künzi, Michael Ackert, Martin Grosse Holtforth et al.
Transdiagnostic psychotherapeutic approaches are increasingly used in neurorehabilitation to address psychological distress. Animal-assistance is thought to increase efficacy. The present study evaluates a psychotherapeutic mindfulness- and self-compassion-based group intervention (MSCBI) with and without animal-assistance for patients with acquired brain injury. Patients (N = 31) were randomly...
Abstract In this opinion piece we propose the investigation of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). BDD is a psychiatric disorder characterised by appearance-based preoccupations and accompanying compulsions. While safe and effective treatments for BDD exist, non-response and relapse rates remain high. Therefore, there is a need to investigate...
We argue that non-stigmatizing and precise terminology grounded in the medical model will advance both the science and public acceptance of psychedelics. Researchers and clinicians should take care to distinguish between medical, recreational, and spiritual uses to set clear boundaries and expectations for patients. Ethically fraught or stigmatizing terms should be replaced with terminology...
Modern clinical research on psychedelics is generating interesting outcomes in a wide array of clinical conditions when psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is delivered to appropriately screened participants and in controlled settings. Still, a number of patients relapse or are less responsive to such treatments. Individual and contextual factors (i.e., set and setting) seem to play a role in...
The current standard of care in most uses of psychedelic medicines for the treatment of psychiatric indications includes the provision of a supportive therapeutic context before, during, and after drug administration. A diversity of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (PAP) models has been created to meet this need. The current article briefly reviews the strengths and limitations of these...
IntroductionPosttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric condition which can be developed following traumatic experience. Treatment guidelines have long considered psychotherapy as a first line treatment. Despite that, PTSD remains an illness with high rates of comorbidity. Therefore, exploring novel therapies is of utmost importance.ObjectivesClarifying methylenedioxymethamphetamine...
Introduction After a long moratorium since the Controlled Substances Act was passed in 1970, there has been a resurgence of research on the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelic (PE) compounds. It has been widely believed that the PE effect is a result of the interaction between the drug and the mindset of the patient (the “set”) with the external physical and social conditions (the...
Psychedelic-assisted Psychotherapy (PAP) combines the use of psychedelic compounds, such as psilocybin, with psychotherapy. PAP has shown some promise as a novel treatment for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), and empirical research suggests that its efficacy turns on the altered states induced by psychedelic compounds. In this paper we draw on the literature of phenomenology to explain the...
Psychedelic therapy is a research-based attempt to combine the use of psychedelic substances with psychotherapy in order to support a client towards therapeutic goals. Literature from the mid-twentieth century as well as more recent scholarship provides strong evidence of psychedelic therapy's ability to safely, rapidly, and effectively treat conditions including depressive disorders and...
Sandra J Drozdz,1 Akash Goel,1â 3 Matthew W McGarr,4 Joel Katz,3,5â 7 Paul Ritvo,5,7 Gabriella F Mattina,1 Venkat Bhat,8â 10 Calvin Diep,3 Karim S Ladha1,3,10 1Department of Anesthesia, St. Michaelâs Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada; 2Department of Anesthesiology, Pain and Perioperative Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA; 3Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine,...
The acute subjective effects of psychedelics are responsive to users’ expectations and surroundings (i.e., “set and setting”). Accordingly, a great deal of thought has gone into designing the psychosocial context of psychedelic administration in clinical settings. But what theoretical paradigms inform these considerations about set and setting? Here, we describe several historical, sociological...
International drug policy is rapidly evolving in tandem with promising evidence for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (PAP) in treating a range of mental health conditions. Canada is among the countries increasingly expanding access to psychedelic substances for therapeutic purposes. The 8-year ban on medical exemptions through the Canadian Special Access Programme was recently reversed in...
This project is a systematic review that highlights how beneficial psychedelic psychotherapy can be to those suffering with mental illness. The three mental illnesses chosen to be analyzed in the literature were depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and anxiety. The drugs used in the specific articles included Psilocybin, Ayahuasca(DMT), and MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine;...
To the Editor: Our group recently published in JCP the first meta-analysis of patient-level data on the effects of psychedelics on suicidality. 1 While not described in our article, it is noteworthy that 2 suicidality-related events that had been deemed not attributable to the administration of a psychedelic (by the authors of the primary outcome studies) occurred within the studies included in...
Depression and anxiety outcome measures, safety/tolerability, patient satisfaction, and ease of implementation of group-based ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (G-KAP) delivered to patients in intensive residential eating disorder (ED) treatment were assessed. This study reports on five participants with a diagnosis of an ED and comorbid mood and anxiety disorders who received weekly...
The research and use of psychedelic medicines to treat common mental health disorders has increased substantially in the past 2 decades. At the same time, knowledge is relatively uncommon among midwives regarding (1) the relative benefits of psychedelic-assisted therapy, (2) best practices associated with the delivery of psychedelic-assisted therapy, and (3) responsible integration of this...
BACKGROUND: There is currently renewed interest in the use of psychedelic therapy in the treatment of psychiatric disorders, including depression. The proposed systematic review will aim to identify, evaluate and summarise the psychological processes of change underlying psychedelic therapy for depression in the current literature and consider the implications these processes may have on the...