Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy

See What do we know about the risks of psychedelics? & free documentary What's in My Baggie? There is an incredible danger in thinking you can just find good psychedelics via illegal markets, I can say that from personal experience as I was attacked by a friend who thought LSD could cure his depression.

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Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy

Eduardo Ekman Schenberg

Mental disorders are rising while development of novel psychiatric medications is declining. This stall in innovation has also been linked with intense debates on the current diagnostics and explanations for mental disorders, together constituting a paradigmatic crisis. A radical innovation is psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (PAP): professionally supervised use of ketamine, MDMA, psilocybin, LSD and ibogaine as part of elaborated psychotherapy programs. Clinical results so far have shown safety and efficacy, even for “treatment resistant” conditions, and thus deserve increasing attention from medical, psychological and psychiatric professionals. But more than novel treatments, the PAP model also has important consequences for the diagnostics and explanation axis of the psychiatric crisis, challenging the discrete nosological entities and advancing novel explanations for mental disorders and their treatment, in a model considerate of social and cultural factors, including adversities, trauma, and the therapeutic potential of some non-ordinary states of consciousness.

[Laird]

First off, a heads-up, Sci: the What's in My Baggie? video seems to be MIA.

Secondly, I'm posting to this thread only because it seemed the most appropriate place, after searching, to post a link to an article which I somehow came across but by now have forgotten where/how:

Is the Ketamine Boom Getting out of Hand?

Mental health specialists don’t begrudge providers for opening their doors and offering a potentially beneficial treatment to patients eager for relief before it’s approved by the Food and Drug Administration. But they say some clinics are going too far in their promises—and not caring appropriately for patients.

“This is not snake oil. It’s not something that has to be stamped out,” Lieberman said. “It’s something that has to be reined in.”

Hopefully fixed. 

I do think we are in the "growing pains" of psychedelics, and I'd never want to pretend they are a panacea - especially since I've yet to take any and possibly never will.

OTOH I do think they provide a window into understanding consciousness and potentially great benefits for many. As the medical establishment goes, they aren't the only drug that needs to be reined in of course...

How Should Psychedelic Medicine Handle “Flashbacks”?

Ed Prideaux

Why care about HPPD now?

A simple reason. Many readers will be aware of the burgeoning ‘psychedelic renaissance’ in psychiatry and mental health treatment, around which the coverage is now so positive that it’s causing researchers real concern.

Distressing HPPD has not yet been observed in clinical trials, whose samples are small and heavily screened. As therapies scale to mass populations and criteria are relaxed, however, it seems plausible that some will develop the condition in frightening ways—not least since HPPD is comparatively under-emphasised and little known.