EVOLVING UNDERSTANDINGS OF PSYCHEDELICS IN CLINICAL RESEARCH

Over the past 20 years, data from controlled clinical trials with a variety of psychedelic drugs have been collected from more than a thousand patients. While clinical endpoints are typically reported from these trials, little focus has been placed on data that inform the actual participant experience, non-pharmacological variables impacting outcomes, and logistics of administering these novel and highly psychoactive interventions in modern clinical environments. Practical matters like challenges for scalability and access may significantly affect how these compounds can be used in clinical settings. This workshop will cover unique therapeutic opportunities as well as challenges with group delivery formats and provide recommendations for future trials. Questions such as the role of active psychotherapy versus psychological support during psychedelic sessions remains a focus of interest. Workshop content will include data and discussion on the comparison of evidence-based Trauma Focused Psychotherapy for PTSD vs psychological support in the context of psilocybin administration. Questions about what specific agents may be preferentially utilized in conditions such as PTSD due to the quality of their induced experience merits exploration. Data on the benefits of psilocybin for PTSD will be shared, as well as new data looking at participant-therapist interactions. While using psychological support during psychedelic sessions rather than a formal evidence-based psychotherapy approach, data related to therapeutic alliance and the effect of subjective patient experience during a Phase 2 Treatment Resistant Depression study will be shared and discussed. This workshop will include presentation of data and clinical experiences related to what happens in the setting of investigator-initiated research and large-scale clinical trials with psychedelic agents. Insights shared during the discussion could inform future research directions, and clinical implementation.

Learning Objective 1: Discuss the effects of non-pharmacological variables in quality of experience and clinical outcomes in clinical psychedelic research

Learning Objective 2: Review established understandings of psychedelic drug selection, and the added value of psychotherapy.

References

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