Journal of Psychedelic Studies
September 17, 2021
Riccardo Miceli Mcmillan
13 citations
The re-medicalisation of psychedelics risks turning their ecological sources, cultural contexts, and therapeutic experiences into exploitable resources, endangering ecosystems, appropriating traditional knowledge, and reducing therapeutic effects. Applying Martin Heidegger's critique of modern technology and Fredrik Svenaeus' extension reveals these normative issues. Preserving non-reductionist, non-instrumentalising traditional understandings of psychedelic compounds is essential to mitigate these consequences. Bioethicists have remained silent on this topic, and more discussion is needed to address these global challenges for the psychedelic renaissance.
Journal of Medical Ethics
November 4, 2020
Riccardo Miceli Mcmillan
12 citations
Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy shows promise for treating psychiatric conditions, with therapeutic outcomes predicted by mystical experiences characterized by profound meaning. This suggests psychedelics may work as meaning enhancers, triggering a meaning response similar to placebo effects. The paper argues that if psychedelics operate this way, their use can be ethically justified from a hedonistic moral perspective. It addresses an anti-hedonistic objection based on Nozick's Experience Machine thought experiment, concluding that even if pleasure and pain are not the only morally relevant factors, therapeutic meaning enhancement remains justified in cases of extreme suffering, and psychedelic states may not represent a false reality, thus not problematic by Nozick's standards.
J Eat Disord
September 2, 2025
Elena Koning, Riccardo Miceli Mcmillan, Aaron Keshen et al.
3 citations
This paper argues that current psychedelic-assisted therapy studies for eating disorders may fail to capture meaningful outcomes because they rely on standard psychiatric measures that overlook the subjective, first-person experience of the disorder. From a phenomenological psychopathology perspective, the authors contend that eating disorders involve profound alterations in self-perception, embodiment, and identity that cannot be adequately assessed through symptom checklists or behavioral metrics alone. They suggest that incorporating experiential data and qualitative accounts of transformative shifts in sense of self and body relationship could provide a more accurate picture of therapeutic efficacy.
Philosophical Psychology
November 25, 2024
Riccardo Miceli Mcmillan, Jack Reynolds, Anthony Vincent Fernandez
3 citations
Psychedelic therapy's effectiveness partly depends on the nature of the experiences it produces, especially altered time perception, such as feelings of timelessness. Interpreting these reports is challenging because true timelessness may be impossible to experience, and descriptions vary in clinical relevance. Using a phenomenological approach to temporality, this article clarifies ambiguities in current assessment tools. It proposes that psychedelic temporality might counteract depressive temporality, offering a preliminary mechanism for therapy. A dedicated phenomenological research program could map psychedelic time experiences, resolving philosophical and clinical uncertainties and guiding future studies.
International Journal of Transgender Health
June 8, 2026
Tiana Bartholomaeus, Samantha J. Brown, Annette Brömdal et al.
An analysis of 225 Reddit posts from trans individuals describes how psychedelic experiences can both help and harm. Psychedelic-induced altered states can lead to self-acceptance, gender euphoria, and gender realization, and psychological release during trips can facilitate a journey of self-acceptance. These experiences can function as a catalyst for change but can also simultaneously support and exacerbate gender dysphoria. The findings highlight a duality in psychedelics for trans people, with both healing qualities (e.g., gender euphoria, self-acceptance) and harming qualities (e.g., exacerbated dysphoria and grief). Clinical applications should consider this duality to inform responsive and affirming psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy protocols.