Learning to Let Go: A Cognitive-Behavioral Model of How Psychedelic Therapy Promotes Acceptance
Frontiers in Psychiatry – February 21, 2020
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Psychedelic-assisted therapies combat psychopathology by reducing experiential avoidance and fostering acceptance. A psychology model suggests that in a controlled context, psychedelics relax beliefs, motivating acceptance. This cognitive process, showing parallels with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, facilitates avoidance-free exposure to intense private events. Such learning revises avoidance beliefs, explaining long-term acceptance increases for clinical psychology and psychotherapists in Psychedelics and Drug Studies.
Abstract
The efficacy of psychedelic-assisted therapies for mental disorders has been attributed to the lasting change from experiential avoidance to acceptance that these treatments appear to facilitate. This article presents a conceptual model that specifies potential psychological mechanisms underlying such change, and that shows substantial parallels between psychedelic therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy: We propose that in the carefully controlled context of psychedelic therapy as applied in contemporary clinical research, psychedelic-induced belief relaxation can increase motivation for acceptance via operant conditioning, thus engendering episodes of relatively avoidance-free exposure to greatly intensified private events. Under these unique learning conditions, relaxed avoidance-related beliefs can be exposed to corrective information and become revised accordingly, which may explain long-term increases in acceptance and corresponding reductions in psychopathology. Open research questions and implications for clinical practice are discussed.