European child & adolescent psychiatry
November 1, 2024
Samuli Kangaslampi, Josjan Zijlmans
18 citations
MDMA-assisted psychotherapy (MDMA-AP) may soon be approved for adults with PTSD, but adolescents also commonly suffer from PTSD and current treatments have limitations. As an adjunct to therapy, MDMA may reduce avoidance, strengthen therapeutic alliance, enhance extinction learning and trauma reappraisal. Adaptations for adolescents include reinforcing motivation, building a strong therapeutic alliance, adding emotion and behavior management techniques, using more directive exposure methods during sessions, supporting concomitant challenges, and involving family. Potential risks include physical and psychological side effects, toxicity, misuse, and ethical issues. Clinical trials are needed to determine safety and efficacy for adolescents rather than off-label use or extrapolating from adult studies.
Psychopharmacology
March 17, 2025
Samuli Kangaslampi, Morten Lietz
10 citations
Psychedelics have long been thought to enhance autobiographical memory, and revisiting personal memories may be key to their therapeutic effects, yet modern research has largely overlooked this topic. This paper presents six open questions: whether psychedelics boost autobiographical recall, whether recalling significant or traumatic memories commonly occurs during psychedelic experiences, whether they can produce false or inaccurate memories, how memories change when recalled and reconsolidated under their influence, what memories of psychedelic experiences are like, and whether autobiographical experiences under psychedelics are especially important for therapeutic outcomes. The authors review limited evidence for each question and suggest how future studies could address them, emphasizing relevance for developing effective and safe psychedelic-assisted therapies.
Samuli Kangaslampi, Josjan Zijlmans
2 citations
preprint
MDMA-assisted psychotherapy (MDMA-AP) is being considered as a treatment for PTSD in adults and may soon be approved. PTSD is also common in adolescents, and existing treatments are often insufficient. This paper argues that MDMA-AP holds potential for adolescents with PTSD by reducing avoidance, strengthening the therapeutic alliance, and enhancing trauma processing. The authors suggest adaptations for adolescents, including reinforcing motivation, involving family, and using more directive exposure methods. They also discuss risks such as side effects, toxicity, misuse, and ethical concerns. They conclude that clinical trials are needed to determine safety and effectiveness for adolescents, rather than relying on off-label use or extrapolating from adult studies.
Journal of Eating Disorders
December 4, 2025
Samuli Kangaslampi, Max Wolff, Manoj K. Doss et al.
1 citation
Psychedelics like psilocybin can trigger vivid memory-like experiences, but a recent case report claiming that two patients recovered dissociated traumatic memories during psilocybin treatment for anorexia nervosa may not have adequately considered alternative explanations. The cases do not necessarily show that psilocybin induces recovery of dissociated traumatic memories or could treat dissociative amnesia. The authors also caution against explicitly preparing patients for the emergence of forgotten material, as such suggestions warrant scrutiny.
Psychedelic Medicine
June 16, 2026
Max Wolff, Samuli Kangaslampi, Richard J. Zeifman et al.
Therapeutic alliance likely plays a meaningful role in shaping both the psychedelic experience and clinical outcomes, contrary to a recent analysis that concluded it did not. This commentary argues that the reported results actually support a meaningful role for alliance when contextualized properly, and that methodological decisions obscured relevant effects. Unexplained deviations from the study protocol also warrant scrutiny. The findings underscore the importance of accurately characterizing psychological and contextual factors in psychedelic treatment research and call for more transparent analyses of psychotherapeutic processes.
Psychopharmacology
April 29, 2026
Anne-Fiona Griesfeller, Lotte Kooman, Lilian Kloft-Heller et al.
A scoping review of 53 sources found no coherent explanation for how psychedelics might recover repressed memories, nor consistent evidence that they do so reliably. Most publications focused on LSD, but few defined what they meant by repressed memory. Proposed mechanisms—psychoanalytical reductions of defensive memory blockades and neurobiological alterations of executive control—lacked empirical support. The review concludes that future work should provide clear definitions, test effects across multiple psychedelic substances, use placebo-controlled designs, and account for the potential occurrence of false memories.
Samuli Kangaslampi, Morten P. Lietz
preprint
Psychedelics have long been thought to enhance autobiographical memory, and revisiting such memories may be key to their therapeutic effects, yet modern research has largely overlooked this area. This review identifies six open questions: whether psychedelics boost autobiographical recall; whether recalling significant or traumatic memories is common during psychedelic experiences; whether they can produce false memories; how memories change when recalled and reconsolidated under psychedelics; what memories of the psychedelic experience itself are like; and whether autobiographical experiences under psychedelics are especially important for therapeutic outcomes. The authors present the limited current evidence for each question and propose how future studies could address them, emphasizing relevance for optimizing psychedelic-assisted therapies and avoiding harm.