Why Psychiatry Needs 3,4 Methylenedioxymeth-amphetamine : A Child Psychiatrist’s Perspective Ben SESSA Neurotherapeutics, 2017, 14, (3), 741-749. doi:10.1007/s13311-017-0531-1 Abstract Since the late 1980s the psychoactive drug 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) has had a well-known history as the recreationally used drug ecstasy. What is less well known by the public is that MDMA started its life as a therapeutic agent and that in recent years an increasing amount of clinical research has been undertaken to revisit the drug’s medical potential. MDMA has unique pharmacological properties that translate well to its proposed agent to assist trauma-focused psychotherapy. Psychological trauma—especially that which arises early in life from child abuse—underpins many [...]
Lire la suiteAssessment of the Psychotherapeutic Effects of Ritual Ayahuasca Use on Drug Dependency : A Pilot Study Xavier Fernández, Rafael Guimarães dos Santos, Marta Cutchet, Sabela Fondevila, Débora González, Miguel Ángel Alcázar, Jordi Riba, José Carlos Bouso, Josep María Fábregas, Xavier Fernández, Rafael Guimarães dos Santos in "The Therapeutic Use of Ayahuasca", Chapter 11, 183-196 Beatriz Caiuby LABATE, Clancy CAVNAR Editors, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2014 First Online: 23 November 2013 Abstract Using personality, psychopathology, and neuropsychological assessment instruments, our team assessed the therapeutic effects of an ayahuasca ritual treatment. Data was collected at the Institute of Applied Amazonian Ethnopsychology (IDEAA), in the Brazilian Amazon Basin. Psychological assessments [...]
Lire la suiteEffects of a Psychedelic, Tropical Tea, Ayahuasca, on the Electroencephalographic (EEG) Activity of the Human Brain during a Shamanistic Ritual Erik Hoffmann, Jan M. Keppel Hesselink, Yatra-W.M. da Silveira Barbosa MAPS Bulletin, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, USA, Spring 2001, pp 25-30 Abstract Eight channels of EEG from 12 volunteers participating in a workshop in Brazil were recorded under field conditions before and after a shamanistic ritual in which the psychoactive tea, ayahuasca, was consumed. Following three doses of the tea, the subjects showed strong and statistically significant increases of both EEG alpha (8-13Hz) and theta (4-8Hz) mean amplitudes compared to baseline while beta [...]
Lire la suiteThe Therapeutic Potentials of Ayahuasca : Possible Effects against Various Diseases of Civilization Ede Frecska, Petra Bokor and Michael Winkelman Frontiers in Pharmacology, 2016, Vol 7, Article 35, 1-17. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2016.00035 Ayahuasca is an Amazonian psychoactive brew of two main components. Its active agents are b-carboline and tryptamine derivatives. As a sacrament, ayahuasca is still a central element of many healing ceremonies in the Amazon Basin and its ritual consumption has become common among the mestizo populations of South America. Ayahuasca use amongst the indigenous people of the Amazon is a form of traditional medicine and cultural psychiatry. During the last two decades, the [...]
Lire la suiteConsideration of Ayahuasca for the Treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Jessica L. NIELSON, & Julie D. MEGLER MAPS Bulletin Annual Report, Winter 2012, 29-31. THERE IS A GROWING AMOUNT OF RESEARCH on the development of PTSD and its various treatments. The fact that many people who su!er from PTSD struggle with the currently approved therapeutic options that are available to them suggests that we need to start exploring alternative strategies to treat this disorder.1 With the large number of veterans returning home from war that may have or will develop PTSD, we must have a diverse framework of therapy and integration in place [...]
Lire la suiteA Psychotherapeutic View on the Therapeutic Effects of Ritual Ayahuasca Use in the Treatment of Addiction Anja LOIZAGA-VELDER MAPS Bulletin Special Edition, Spring 2013, 36-40. Ayahuasca is a traditional plant preparation of the Amazon basin with psychoactive properties. In recent decades ayahuasca has gained the attention of researchers in multiple disciplines worldwide due to its acclaimed therapeutic and spiritual qualities. It is an admixture of two plants : the harmaline containing vine Banisteriopsis caapi, and the DMT-containing leafs from the Psychotria viridis bush. It is typically administered by a trained expert in a ritual context. The use of ayahuasca has spread beyond the Amazon [...]
Lire la suiteChapter 1 : You Have a Constitutional Right to Psychedelics. Academic Freedom, Personal Conscience, and Psychotechnologies Thomas B. Roberts From: Ellens, H. J. & T. B. Roberts. 2015. The Psychedelic Policy Quagmire: Health, Law, Freedom, and Society. Santa Barbara, CA. ABC-CLIO. Author’s note: This also applies to the European Charter of Human Rights and to similar national and international statements. Added Mar. 16, 2016. The problem : we do not suppress books and the ideas they contain; we do suppress psychedelic mindstates and the ideas they contain. Censorship is the issue of contention here: intellectual censorship. In this chapter, we’ll spot the single-state fallacy as [...]
Lire la suiteNabiximols combined with motivational enhancement/cognitive behavioral therapy for the treatment of cannabis dependence : A pilot randomized clinical trial Jose M. Trigo, Alexandra Soliman, Lena C. Quilty, Benedikt Fischer, JuÈrgen Rehm, Peter Selby, Allan J. Barnes11¤a, Marilyn A. Huestis, Tony P. George, David L. Streiner, Gregory Staios, Bernard Le Foll PLoS ONE, 2018, 13, (1), e0190768. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0190768 Abstract Background The current lack of pharmacological treatments for cannabis use disorder (CUD) warrants novel approaches and further investigation of promising pharmacotherapy. We previously showed that nabiximols (27 mg/ml Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)/ 25 mg/ml cannabidiol (CBD), Sativex®) can decrease cannabis withdrawal symptoms. Here, we assessed in a pilot study the [...]
Lire la suitePsychedelic Elephant A critique of psychedelic research Peter Webster juillet 2019 https://www.researchgate.net/search.Search.html?type=researcher&query=Psychedelic%20Elephant My title might lead some who are old enough to remember the incident 1 2 to expect from this essay an indictment of the idiots who conducted the "scientific research" during which an elephant was clearly murdered.3 It is always great fun to expose foolishness and willful ignorance. But unfortunately, psychedelic research in those days, the 1950s and 1960s, attracted no small number of other scientists who, at least in retrospect, could also be called idiots. Jean Houston (1967) has described one of her initial observations of LSD administration. The subject was told by [...]
Lire la suiteExpanding the Scientific Study of Self-Experience with Psychedelics Manesh Girn and Kalina Christoff Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2018, 25, (11–12), 131–54 Abstract : The nature of the self has long been a topic of discussion in philosophical and religious contexts, and has recently also garnered significant scientific attention. Although evidence exists to suggest the multifaceted nature of self-experience, the amount of research done on each of its putative components has not been uniform. Whereas selfreflective processing has been studied extensively, non-reflective aspects of self-experience have been the subject of comparatively little empirical research. This discrepancy may be linked to the methodological difficulties in experimentally [...]
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