Imported Top List

A very straightforward and down-to-earth briefing of the problems involved in psychedelic research has been published by Ben Sessa in 2014. In ‘Why Psychiatry Needs Psychedelics and Psychedelics Need Psychiatry’ the UK-based psychotherapist argues that we have to reject the enthusiastic, yet naïve notion of creating a utopian society thanks to the use of psychedelics. Instead, researchers and healthcare professionals should focus on realistic and non-biased views of psychedelics as novel players in the pharmaceutical market.

The historical context of research on psychedelics is extensively discussed in ‘Psychedelics: Where we are now, why we got here, what we must do’. In their 2018 commentary, Belouina and Henningfield travel through the rise, the fall, and the current renaissance of psychedelics as medical agents. Drawing conclusions from the historical context and paying close attention to health policymakers and their influence on science, the authors set a trajectory for the immediate future of clinical advances in the field of psychedelic research.

A strictly medical perspective is offered by David E. Nichols, Matthew Johnson, and Charles D. Nichols in their state-of-the-art review from 2016. ‘Psychedelics as Medicines: An emerging new paradigm’ compares various clinical trials with patients suffering from several psychiatric disorders and presents the psychedelic mechanisms of action on a cellular level.

Four years later, two pioneers of psychedelic research in Brazil teamed up and published a detailed review of the therapeutic potential of LSD, psilocybin, and ayahuasca. ‘Therapeutic use of serotoninergic hallucinogens: A review of the evidence and of the biological and psychological mechanisms‘ by Guimarães & Hallak (2020) scrutinizes the effects of psychedelics in substance use disorders, as well as in anxiety and depression related to cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

Parallel to LSD, psilocybin has also been investigated in order to establish its potential in reducing depression and anxiety in patients suffering from life-threatening cancer. Scientists from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine established, that ‘Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized double-blind trial’ (2016) whilst producing no adverse effects. The reported improvements in quality of life, life meaning, death acceptance, and optimism persisted for at least six months after psilocybin administration.

Drawing from the REBUS model proposed by Robin Carhart-Harris, Max Wolff and colleagues (2020) constructed a cognitive-behavioral model to explain the mechanisms of beneficial effects in psychedelic interventions. ‘Learning to Let Go: A Cognitive-Behavioral Model of How Psychedelic Therapy Promotes Acceptance’ proposes that the relaxation of avoidance-related beliefs can be achieved during a psychedelic-assisted therapy session. It allows the patient to reach an emotional breakthrough, which is an insightful and rewarding experience able to re-wire the previous avoidance patterns. The relaxed-belief state can potentially induce ego-dissolution, leading to long-term improvements in overcoming anxiety-provoking situations through revision and reinterpretation of pathological belief systems.

A very pragmatic analysis has been presented by Marseille and colleagues in ‘The cost-effectiveness of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD’ (2020). The article focuses on the costs of medical care required for patients suffering from PTSD. The developed model of medical care cost suggests that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy is highly cost-effective and therefore beneficial not only to the patients but also to the society and healthcare providers.