A new study has investigated how effective psychedelic-assisted therapy is in managing various treatment-resistant mental conditions. The researchers determined that these therapy sessions, particularly those that involved psilocybin or LSD, substantially improved symptoms of depression.
They also found that individuals who were relaxed during their sessions experienced noticeable effects. Prior to their study, the researchers posited that having a positive experience during one’s therapy session or feeling relaxed contributed to the therapeutic effects of psychedelic therapy.
For their study, the researchers obtained data from 2 groups; twenty-eight patients taking part in psychedelic-assisted therapy and twenty-eight healthy participants who were part of a separate trial. Individuals in the former group included those diagnosed with treatment-resistant mental health conditions like anxiety and depression who hadn’t benefitted from traditional treatments.
Prior to their therapy sessions, every patient met with their psychiatrist two times to discuss their psychiatric history, any complaints they may have had and their therapy goals. The psychiatrists also offered information on the negative and positive effects of consuming psychedelics as well as how any issues that arose could be managed.
For their psychedelic therapy session, professionals administered a dose of either psilocybin or LSD to patients in a comfortable, quiet room. Each was encouraged to relax, in addition to rating different features of their experience hourly. This included negative or positive feelings, overall intensity of effects, and relaxation levels.
After the sessions, their symptoms of depression were measured and compared to the before results, which allowed researchers to observe any changes in depressive symptoms or mood. Unlike this group, the control group wasn’t asked to rate their relaxation levels after their psychedelic therapy sessions.
In their report, the researchers explained that they recorded a decrease in symptoms of depression among patients.
The improvement was noticeable even a week after their sessions, which suggests that this therapy’s antidepressant effects may last even after the session. This offers hope to patients who’ve not benefitted from conventional treatments.
They also found the strongest forecaster of positive mental health outcomes to be relaxation, explaining that individuals who felt relaxed in their sessions demonstrated the highest reductions in their symptoms of depression. This, the researchers noted, suggests that the level of ease and comfort patients experienced as well as the quality of the therapy environment may be crucial to the treatment’s success.
In addition to this, the researchers found that this improvement wasn’t associated with the usual features of a psychedelic experience like ego dissolution or mystical insights. This, they theorize, could be because the patients experienced less intense effects due to the long-term impact of psychiatric drugs on brain function.
In their report, the researchers suggest looking into ways to increase relaxation during therapy sessions in a bid to boost the therapy’s benefits. The researchers’ findings were reported in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
It would be interesting to learn how psychedelic drug development companies like Mind Medicine Inc. (NASDAQ: MNMD) (NEO: MMED) (DE: MMQ) think about the impact of set and setting factors like relaxation upon the effectiveness of the formulations they are working on.
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