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BACKGROUND

Psychedelic therapy refers to therapeutic practices involving psychedelic drugs, oftentimes utilizing serotonergic psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin, DMT, MDMA, mescaline, and 2C-B.

The term psychedelic means “mind manifesting”  and it was coined by psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond in the early 1950s who pioneered the use of LSD as a treatment for alcoholism and various mental disorders.

Osmond and started an investigation into the properties of hallucinogens and observed that mescaline produced effects similar to the symptoms of schizophrenia, and that its chemical structure was very similar to that of the hormone and neurotransmitter adrenaline. This led them to postulate that schizophrenia was caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, but these ideas were not favourably received by their colleagues.

PAP PRACTICE

The practice involves three distinct therapy phases:

I. Preparation

II. The acute psychedelic experience

III. Integration

PREPARATION

The therapy phase begins with preparation. From going on a specific diet to other forms of preparation, there are numerous approaches to the preparation of PAP. In clinical trials, participants will typically attend a number of talk-therapy sessions with a trained therapist who will be in attendance during the psychedelic session. A therapeutic alliance is developed during this time, and the nature of the individual’s struggle is explored. To avoid a “bad trip,” trust and comfort must be built among the therapist and the patient.

EXPERIENCE

During the psychedelic session, ‘set’ and ‘setting’ are highly important. ‘Set’ refers to mind-set, such as expectation and mood, and more enduring phenomena like personality and past experience. ‘Setting’ refers to the context or environment in which the session takes place, including basic factors like the comfort and aesthetic quality of the room, and more complex factors like the quality of the relationship with the clinicians and the mood they help to set.

INTEGRATION

Immediately after the psychedelic session and in the following days, a process of integration is facilitated by the therapist. During these conversations, the patient has the opportunity to process, make sense of, and give meaningful expression to their psychedelic experience. This allows for the therapy to come full circle.

CONCLUSION

In rigorous and well-controlled clinical trials over the past decade, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has produced some groundbreaking clinical outcomes for individuals suffering with addiction, depression, end-of-life anxiety, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Psilocybin Therapy

Depression

Psilocybin been used and proven to treat major depression. According to JAMA Psychiatry, psilocybin-assisted therapy was used in a randomized clinical trial to show there was immediate improvement of patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder within a month of use in comparison to patients who did not receive psilocybin-assisted therapy. It was found that the group which was treated with two sessions of psilocybin-assisted therapy, was significantly improved, deeming psilocybin-assisted therapy effective and further expanding the research and trials of psilocybin-assisted therapy for depression and cancer victims.