Journal of Humanistic Psychology
April 28, 2017
Alexander Belser, Gabrielle Agin-Liebes, Thomas Cody Swift et al.
305 citations
In psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for cancer patients with anxiety, participants commonly reported feelings of interconnectedness, emotional range, meaningful visual phenomena, and revised life priorities. Most described exalted joy, bliss, love, and transient distress, while some experienced lasting identity changes, synesthesia, catharsis, improved relationships, and forgiveness. The findings suggest psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy may effectively treat psychological distress in cancer patients.
Journal of Humanistic Psychology
June 14, 2017
Thomas Cody Swift, Alexander Belser, Gabrielle Agin-Liebes et al.
187 citations
In psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for cancer patients with anxiety, participants described reconciling with death, acknowledging cancer's place in life, and emotionally uncoupling from the disease. The immersive and sometimes distressing psilocybin session led to spiritual or religious interpretations, a felt reconnection to life, reclaiming presence, and greater confidence about cancer recurrence. Patients also reported anxiety and trauma related to cancer and a perceived lack of emotional support. The findings suggest psychological mechanisms—such as emotional uncoupling and reconciliation with death—that may underlie large reductions in anxiety and depression observed in recent trials.
JAMA Psychiatry
March 29, 2023
Sarah Mcnamee, Neşe Devenot, Meaghan Buisson
167 citations
Serious adverse events in psychedelic-assisted therapy trials can arise from interactions between therapists and patients. This Viewpoint discusses such events, highlighting the importance of therapeutic relationship dynamics in ensuring participant safety.
Frontiers in Psychology
December 10, 2021
Brian A. Pace, Neşe Devenot
65 citations
Media and industry advocates claim psychedelics promote environmental concern and liberal politics, but historical and contemporary evidence shows many users remain authoritarian or become radicalized after use. The authors argue that psychedelics do not inherently shift political beliefs in any particular direction; rather, contextual factors of set and setting determine the outcome. Any worldview-challenging experience, including psychedelics, can precipitate political shifts in any direction. The historical record supports psychedelics as "politically pluripotent," non-specific amplifiers of political set and setting. Conservative, hierarchy-based ideologies can assimilate psychedelic experiences of interconnection, as seen in figures like Jordan Peterson and neo-Nazi groups.
Kennedy Institute of Ethics journal
December 1, 2022
Neşe Devenot, Aidan Seale‐feldman, Elyse Smith et al.
50 citations
Psychedelic medicine relies on set and setting, but the specific therapeutic frameworks used alongside the drugs are rarely studied. Analyzing a treatment manual and post-session reports from a pilot psilocybin-assisted smoking cessation study, this article shows how therapeutic frameworks interact with psilocybin to rapidly reshape participants' identity and sense of self. Multiple domains of identity shift were identified that appear to serve as mechanisms for quitting smoking, each present in the manualized treatment. As psychedelic medicine becomes mainstream, consensual, evidence-based approaches to identity shift that respect patient autonomy and encourage empowerment should become key in psychedelic bioethics.
Anthropology of Consciousness
August 22, 2022
Neşe Devenot, Trey Conner, Richard Doyle
45 citations
Psychedelic medicines such as psilocybin, ayahuasca, and iboga have gained mainstream attention for treating addiction, PTSD, cancer, cluster headaches, anxiety, and depression, attracting venture capital and leading to well-capitalized biotech companies with multimillion-dollar IPOs. The authors, who have been healed by these medicines and support recent decriminalization, argue that this corporate-driven "corporadelia" pursues standardization while sidelining the Indigenous and counterculture wisdom that made these substances available. They critique prominent researchers for overstating clinical trial findings in public representations and argue that new psychedelic thought leaders delegitimize non-hierarchical knowledge production. The authors contend that psychedelics' latent potential lies in transforming hegemonic infrastructures and ideologies that perpetuate inequality, not just individual habits.
JAMA network open
June 3, 2024
Amy L McGuire, I Glenn Cohen, Dominic Sisti et al.
41 citations
A consensus statement from a 2023 meeting of 27 experts identifies 20 points of consensus across five ethical issues for integrating psychedelic medicines into mainstream medical practice: reparations and reciprocity, equity, and respect; informed consent; professional boundaries and physical touch; personal experience; and gatekeeping. The meeting included clinicians, researchers, Indigenous groups, industry, philanthropy, veterans, retreat facilitators, training programs, and bioethicists. The statement focuses on government-approved medical use in the US and abroad, emphasizing that policymakers must address challenges ahead while acknowledging the hopeful moment.
International Journal of Cultural Studies
June 9, 2021
Alex K Gearin, Neşe Devenot
40 citations
Scientific research on psychedelic substances, though presented as objective, often embeds moral and political claims in public discourse. This article examines how popular media in the United States and the United Kingdom portray psychedelic medicine as naturalizing specific moral and political orientations—such as neoliberal and anti-authoritarian agency—as healthy and pharmacological. The analysis responds to scholarly debates about the overlap of scientific knowledge and moral discourse, tracing how psychedelics are framed as ego-dissolving medicines.
American Journal of Bioethics
May 2, 2024
Edward Jacobs, B. Earp, Paul S. Appelbaum et al.
29 citations
A workshop on psychedelic ethics, the first Hopkins-Oxford Psychedelic Ethics (HOPE) meeting, was held in August 2023 at the University of Oxford to address ethical issues surrounding psychedelics. The organizers (BDE, DBY, EJ) aimed to foster interdisciplinary discussion on topics such as informed consent, therapeutic use, and societal implications. The report outlines the workshop's structure, key themes, and proposed guidelines for ethical research and practice in the field.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
September 21, 2023
James Davies, Brian A. Pace, Neşe Devenot
29 citations
Psychedelic medicine is promoted as a novel solution to the mental health crisis, but the psychedelics industry adopts profit-driven approaches similar to those that undermined earlier antidepressants like SSRIs. The liberatory rhetoric of psychedelic medicalization actually promotes individualized treatments for distress, distracting from systemic changes needed to address root causes like inequality, precarity, exploitation, and ecological collapse. Through mechanisms of depoliticization, productivization, pathologization, commodification, and de-collectivization, the industry aligns with neoliberal ideology rather than disrupting the psychopharmaceutical status quo. The authors conclude that psychedelics must decouple from neoliberal incentives to achieve durable improvements in well-being.
Nature medicine
June 3, 2025
Chloé Pronovost-Morgan, Kyle T. Greenway, Leor Roseman et al.
26 citations
A Delphi consensus study with 89 experts from 17 countries identified 30 extra-pharmacological variables that are important or very important for reporting the setting in psychedelic clinical trials. These variables, forming the ReSPCT guidelines, cover physical environment, dosing session procedure, therapeutic framework and protocol, and subjective experiences. The findings reveal significant ambiguities in current conceptualizations of set and setting. The guidelines provide a new standard for designing and documenting contextual factors in psychedelic research.
Psychiatr Res Clin Pract
February 11, 2025
Jules Evans, Marc Aixalà, Brian T. Anderson et al.
18 citations
Thirty psychedelic researchers identified critical gaps in knowledge about harms from psychedelic use, including how to define those harms, predict them, and treat them effectively. They recommend better online information, peer support groups, affordable therapy, and psychiatric consultation for people experiencing post-psychedelic difficulties. The researchers also call for improved funding for a psychedelic safety net, suggesting that psychedelic philanthropists, investors, and companies commit 1% of their investment to support safety measures such as research and support services. The article outlines practical steps to make the field of psychedelic medicine safer.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
September 25, 2023
Neşe Devenot
9 citations
The hype around psychedelic medications is infused with utopian and esoteric aspirations absent from earlier SSRI hype, and global tech elites are instrumentalizing both psychedelics and artificial intelligence as tools in a world-building project that justifies increasing material inequality. Through rhetorical analysis of public communications from industry leaders, the author shows that counterfactual efforts to improve mental health by increasing inequality are widespread in the psychedelics industry, propelled by an elitist worldview rooted in the TESCREAL bundle of ideologies—transhumanism, Extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and longtermism. This ideology drives extractive systems that contradict the field's world-healing aspirations.
Perspectives in biology and medicine
January 1, 2024
Logan Neitzke-Spruill, Neşe Devenot, Dominic Sisti et al.
7 citations
Psychedelics are again being studied for their traditional uses, medical applications, and social implications. As evidence for their clinical potential grows, researchers seek mechanisms explaining psychedelic effects and therapeutic efficacy. This paper reviews three frameworks—neurobiological, psychological, and spiritual—for understanding these effects and explores their implications for ethics and professional competencies in psychedelic medicine. The authors suggest interdisciplinary education to improve communication, develop multi-level models, and foster collaboration. They caution against overemphasizing neuro-mechanisms, risks from inducing vulnerable states, and challenges integrating spiritual frameworks. Developing new models that reflect emerging knowledge is a central goal for psychedelic science.
American Journal of Bioethics
January 1, 2025
Neşe Devenot
3 citations
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined to approve Lykos Therapeutics’ application for MDMA-assisted therapy, following the recommendation of its advisory committee. The decision marks a significant regulatory setback for psychedelic-assisted treatments. The text does not provide details on the reasons for the denial or any clinical trial results.
History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals
October 1, 2023
Brian P. Pace, Neşe Devenot
2 citations
The medicalization and commercialization of psychedelics benefit from creating a clear separation between their current project and the controversial history of underground psychedelic use and culture. This strategy serves at least two functions: by discarding countercultural associations, psychedelic medicine can gain legitimacy and distance itself from past stigma.
Frontiers in Psychology
June 9, 2023
Neşe Devenot, George Erving
2 citations
Consciousness may be understood as a form of poetry, with the brain's default mode network acting as a kind of 'editor' that selects and organizes experience into coherent narratives. The article argues that both poetic creation and conscious experience involve a dynamic interplay between spontaneous, associative thought and structured, editorial refinement. This perspective bridges neuroscience and poetics, suggesting that the default mode network's role in self-referential thought and narrative construction is analogous to the editorial process in poetry. The authors propose that viewing consciousness through a poetic lens can offer new insights into its nature and function, potentially informing both scientific and artistic understandings of subjective experience.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
December 29, 2023
Neşe Devenot, Brian A. Pace, Jason Slot et al.
1 citation
The field of psychedelic scholarship is expanding rapidly across clinical research, neuroscience, pharmacology, and the humanities. This special issue introduces the Psychedemia 2022 conference, hosted by the Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education at The Ohio State University, which brought together diverse academic disciplines to discuss integrating psychedelics into society. The conference built on the first Psychedemia in 2012 at the University of Pennsylvania, which helped establish Psychedelic Studies as an interdisciplinary field. As psychedelic research gains mainstream acceptance and a projected multi-billion-dollar medical market emerges, academics have a crucial role in articulating stakeholder concerns and shaping policy, theory, and methodology across social, legal, economic, and environmental dimensions.
European Romantic Review
January 2, 2019
Neşe Devenot
Romantic-era poets and scientists shared a self-experimental method for studying ecstatic states. Humphry Davy tested nitrous oxide on himself, while William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge experimented with natural scenery and poetic composition. Both groups intentionally varied an independent stimulus—a drug or landscape—to observe its effects on body, mind, and well-being. They then packaged these experiences into forms that could transmit ecstatic states to others for healing. This common approach constituted an "ecstatic paradigm" in Thomas Kuhn's sense: a framework for perceiving, interpreting, and generating ecstasy that bridged Romantic science and poetry.