In recent years, researchers have demonstrated that the dissociative anesthetic ketamine provides therapeutic benefits for depression and other mental health problems, and when combined with psychotherapy, it is considered a type of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. In this article, I first review the main issues surrounding ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and then describe the psychodynamic...
There is a need for new effective treatment options for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as many people with PTSD do not fully recover despite current treatments. 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted psychotherapy (MDMA-AT) is emerging as a new treatment option. We assessed the current body of MDMA-AT evidence for effectiveness in treating PTSD, associated impairments, and...
La Terapia Asistida por Psicodélicos (TAP) está emergiendo como un enfoque disruptivo para trastornos de salud mental complejos. Dado que el profesional de la salud mental (PSM) es el actor clave en su implementación, se ha estudiado sus actitudes hacia la TAP, pero falta profundizar la comprensión de los factores que afectan dicha actitud. El objetivo de esta revisión fue sintetizar la...
Indigenous Peoples in North America face distinct barriers to accessing mental health care, including psychedelic assisted psychotherapy (PAT). Although PAT has demonstrated efficacy for treatment-resistant mental health disorders, limited diversity in psychedelic research and the importance of set and setting highlight the need for Indigenous cultural safety (ICS), an approach to care that is...
IntroductionOpioid use disorder (OUD) remains a major public health crisis despite evidence-based medications, including methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone. Persistent challenges with treatment retention, access, stigma, and incomplete response highlight the need for adjunctive pharmacotherapies targeting neurobiological systems beyond the mu-opioid receptor.MethodsWe conducted a...
Psychedelic therapies have shown considerable promise in clinical trials, but their effects depend heavily on context—set, setting, therapeutic relationship, and integration—in ways that sit uneasily with health care systems built to finance discrete drugs and billable services. This white paper examines the institutional pathway through which psychedelic therapies may reach patients, from...
Psychopharmacology, once propelled by a series of serendipitous mid-20th-century discoveries, has matured into a field defined by mechanistic diversity, translational neuroscience, and an expanding array of circuit-based interventions. Despite more than 100 approved psychiatric drugs, remission rates for major depressive disorder and other serious mental disorders remain modest, underscoring...
An Executive Order signed in April 2026 directed US federal agencies to expedite development and review pathways for psychedelic and psychedelic-adjacent (such as ibogaine) therapies. The FDA issued Commissioner's National Priority Vouchers to psilocybin developers, and cleared the investigational new drug (IND) application for noribogaine hydrochloride for alcohol use disorder. These...
Abstract Background A substantial proportion of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) fails to derive significant clinical benefit from current standard-of-care treatments. In particular, complex PTSD exhibits a pronounced tendency toward chronicity. For this refractory population, MDMA-assisted psychotherapy has emerged as a highly promising therapeutic avenue. However, the...
Abstract Background Antidepressant effects of ketamine and esketamine are short lived, often lasting only weeks after multiple treatments. With that in mind, it has been considered addition of psychotherapy may enhance outcomes. One approach, knows as Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) focuses on "integration " of the dissociative experience induced by ketamine, and suggests this may produce...