Psychology

The future of psychiatric treatment is knocking

“For the first time in many years, people who were at the end of the road with currently available treatments, reported decreased anxiety, increased optimism and an ability to enjoy things. This is an unparalleled success.” Depression blights the lives of over 350 million people worldwide. In Europe, 1 in 15 people suffer from major…

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Psychology

Hallucinogens: future of mental health treatment?

“Most powerful substances that we know of, that have powerful effects on the central nervous system, are like any powerful tool,” says Johnson, who has studied how psilocybin affects depression. “They can have dangerous effects, or beneficial effects, if judiciously used in a context where the dangers are known and mechanisms are in place to…

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Psychology

Psychedelics can treat anxiety and depression, but there is a catch

…there are few side effects. but there is a catch: the experiences must be rigorously contextualized, written down, analyzed, etc. Dr. Griffiths noted that patients received extensive support, which may have deepened and secured their life-affirming transformations. “People will take psilocybin at a rave or at Burning Man” — the art and performance desert festival…

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Psychology

A dose of a hallucinogen from a ‘magic mushroom,’ and then lasting peace

“Published… the results from that study, and a similar small, controlled trial, were striking. About 80 percent of cancer patients showed clinically significant reductions in both psychological disorders, a response sustained some seven months after the single dose. Side effects were minimal…The N.Y.U. researchers assessed patients the next day and found the effects to be…

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Psychology

Using psychedelics to increase performance and reprogram the mind/brain interface

“The rose tinted days of “tune in, turn on” are long past. Contemporary neurohackers are exploring these chemicals for everything from accelerated learning to healing major trauma, reprogramming underlying associations that lead to habitual behavioral or thought patterns, shadow work, paradigm engineering, and, of course, the continued exploration of the nature of reality itself. ”…

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Psychology

LSD-induced entropic brain activity predicts subsequent personality change

“Personality is known to be relatively stable throughout adulthood. Nevertheless, it has been shown that major life events with high personal significance, including experiences engendered by psychedelic drugs, can have an enduring impact on some core facets of personality.” Overall, LSD had a pronounced global effect on brain entropy, increasing it in both sensory and…

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Psychology

Seeing opportunity in psychedelic drugs

New research into LSD and psilocybin makes a powerful argument against prohibition. ‘This study assures us that there were not widespread “acid casualties in the 1960s,” Charles Grob, a pediatric psychiatrist at UCLA, told Nature.’ Over 30 million U.S. adults have tried psychedelics and there just is not much evidence of health problems,” the author…

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