The psychotherapeutic use of psychedelics
OpenAlex – July 28, 2020
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, show unprecedented promise for severe anxiety, depression, and PTSD, offering new hope in mental health. Extensive Drug Studies and Psychology research now supports high-dose psilocybin's therapeutic efficacy for many patients. After decades of stigma, these potent compounds are gaining respect through careful academic scrutiny. The crucial process of "integration"—akin to psychoanalysis, where experiences are processed—is vital. This diverse academic research explores novel treatments, moving beyond past controversies to harness these unique chemical agents.
Abstract
Psychedelics are newly respectable. Evidence suggests that a variety of ills, from anxiety and depression to addictions and post-traumatic stress disorder, respond to them in a way hitherto unseen within psychiatry. The researchers involved have been careful to clean up the reputation of a class of drugs that, despite a wealth of promising evidence for their therapeutic effects in the 1960s and 70s, met with a moral panic that stigmatised them for decades after. Current researchers, in a drive to clean up previous Learyesque associations, are more circumspect, but the claims remain big. There is a growing and convincing body of data to support the use of high-dose psilocybin to treat anxiety and depression. Integration is the term used within the psychedelic community for the processing and sense-making that is sometimes needed after an impactful psychedelic experience. Just as psychotherapeutic modalities have the potential to lapse into dogma, so do some of the stories and norms in some ceremonial circles.