Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Electronic address: michaela.barber@monash.edu.
2 papers in the library · 16 citations · publishing 2020-2025
Online forums like Reddit and Drugs Forum serve as key resources for people considering ibogaine therapy for addiction, where personal experiences and evidence-based information are both valued. Forum participants discuss treatment arrangements, risks, and harm reduction extensively. While many prefer clinic-based treatment due to safety concerns, financial and time constraints sometimes lead to lay-administration of ibogaine. Microdosing is frequently discussed. Therapeutic effects are primarily framed in terms of pharmacological mechanisms, but positive psychological changes from the psychedelic experience are also reported. The forums foster a sense of community where individuals are held accountable for treatment success, and neuroscientific explanations of addiction hold particular explanatory power for participants.
Physical touch is often used as a supportive tool in psychedelic-assisted therapy, but participants under the influence of psychedelics have reduced capacity to consent and are more suggestible. Interviews with 16 researchers revealed three themes: flexible frameworks, therapeutic alliance, and boundary management. Researchers noted that consent to therapeutic touch should be established before dosing sessions and continually managed. Flexibility in consent protocols helped build therapeutic alliance but also created challenges in boundary management. Researchers emphasized the need for clearer ethical guidelines for handling changing preferences during dosing sessions and limits on expanding consent after drug administration.