Psychology and Cognitive Sciences - Open Journal
December 7, 2015
Sharon Joy Ng
3 citations
Today the discipline of psychology is branching out to embrace research into more esoteric areas that can provide the means and techniques that will empower people to assume greater self-responsibility for their mental and physical health while simultaneously empowering each person with powerful tools for health and well-being. I refer to the increased interest and research in the contemplative...
Psychopharmacology
October 2015
Mendel Kaelen, Frederick S. Barrett, Leor Roseman et al.
There is renewed interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). LSD was used extensively in the 1950s and 1960s as an adjunct in psychotherapy, reportedly enhancing emotionality. Music is an effective tool to evoke and study emotion and is considered an important element in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy; however, the hypothesis that...
September 7, 2015
Karolina Dydak, Mariola Śliwińska‐mossoń, Halina Milnerowicz
5 citations
Substances of plant origin have been used to induce hallucinations for a long time, in religious ceremonies and rituals as well as in pain relief. Psilocybin and psilocin naturally occur in the fungal genus Psilocybe. Due to the psychedelic effects and relative harmlessness of these substances and the fact that they do not cause physical addiction, psilocybin and psilocin recently have been...
Frontiers in Immunology
July 14, 2015
Attila Szabo
153 citations
Classical psychedelics are psychoactive substances, which, besides their psychopharmacological activity, have also been shown to exert significant modulatory effects on immune responses by altering signaling pathways involved in inflammation, cellular proliferation, and cell survival via activating NF-κB and mitogen-activated protein kinases. Recently, several neurotransmitter receptors...
The British Journal of Psychiatry
May 1, 2015
Matthew M. Nour, Jacob Krzanowski
2 citations
Therapeutic potential of psychedelic agentsAmphetamine, methylphenidate, morphine, heroin and ketamine are all drugs that can potentially be used clinically but, whenever we hear the word MDMA, the first thoughts that come to mind are of ecstasy, rave parties and people behaving in an odd manner and experiencing hallucinations, paranoia and disinhibition.Recently, there has been a lot of...
Drug Science, Policy and Law
March 24, 2015
Ben Sessa, Friederike Meckel Fischer
39 citations
Underground psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has persisted in Europe despite the banning of the substances LSD and MDMA in the 1960s and 1980s, respectively. This article describes the work of a Zurich-based psychotherapist providing individual and group psycholytic psychotherapy, whose practice persisted for several years before she was arrested in 2009. The article provides commentary on...
Current Drug Abuse Reviews
January 9, 2015
Albert Garcia‐romeu, Roland R. Griffiths, Matthew W. Johnson
480 citations
Psilocybin-occasioned mystical experiences have been linked to persisting effects in healthy volunteers including positive changes in behavior, attitudes, and values, and increases in the personality domain of openness. In an open-label pilot-study of psilocybin-facilitated smoking addiction treatment, 15 smokers received 2 or 3 doses of psilocybin in the context of cognitive behavioral therapy...
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
2015
Timothy Amoroso
Prior to 1985, ±3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) was readily used as a psychotherapeutic adjunct. As MDMA became popular in treating various psychiatric illnesses by mental health professionals, the public started to abuse the MDMA-containing recreational drug "ecstasy." This alarmed the DEA, which led to emergency scheduling of MDMA as a Schedule I drug. Due to its scheduling in 1985,...
Cahiers du monde russe
2015
S. Marks
17 citations
Drawing on research papers, archives and scientific memoirs, this paper reconstructs the psychedelic research projects developed in Prague between 1954 and1974, situating psychiatric research in Communist Czechoslovakia within the transnational context of Cold War science. It traces attempts to induce experimental psychosis as a means of exploring the aetiology of schizophrenia; as well as the...
The British Journal of Psychiatry
2015
Ben Sessa, Matthew W. Johnson
58 citations
Summary After a 40-year hiatus there is now a revisiting of psychedelic drug therapy throughout psychiatry, with studies examining the drugs psilocybin, ketamine, ibogaine and ayahuasca in the treatment of drug dependence. Limitations to these therapies are both clinical and legal, but the possibility of improving outcomes for patients with substance dependency imposes an obligation to research...