Ergebnisse aus der Praxis belegen den Nutzen einer psychedelischen Therapie bei schwerer Depression. Eine aktuelle Studie hat herausgefunden, dass eine spezialisierte Psychotherapie in Kombination mit Dosen von LSD oder Psilocybin mit einer starken Verringerung schwerer Depressionen und Angstzuständen verbunden ist.

Real world outcomes support the benefits of psychedelic therapy for severe depression

A recent study has found that specialized psychotherapy paired with doses of either LSD or psilocybin is associated with strong reductions in severe depression and anxiety. These mental health improvements emerged relatively quickly and took place within a standard hospital care program. The findings were published in the journal Psychiatry Research.

In recent years, researchers have renewed their investigation into the medical potential of classic hallucinogens. Conditions like severe depression and generalized anxiety do not always respond to standard psychiatric medications. For many individuals, initial treatments such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors fail to provide lasting relief from persistent sad moods or chronic worry.

Individuals who do not respond to multiple standard treatments are often diagnosed with treatment-resistant conditions. This status leaves them with limited options in conventional medical practice. Psychedelic-assisted therapy has emerged as a promising alternative for these populations in strictly monitored experimental trials.

These therapies combine traditional talk therapy with the ingestion of a mind-altering substance under professional supervision. The goal is to induce a temporary change in consciousness that allows patients to process difficult emotions. A trained therapist helps the patient integrate these conceptual insights into their daily life after the drug effects wear off.

The team observed a pronounced decrease in both depression and anxiety scores over the treatment timeline. More than a third of the sample reported that their depressive symptoms had been reduced by at least half. A smaller portion recorded modest but noticeable symptom relief. These benefits appeared robust across the broader cohort, supporting previous findings from highly controlled laboratory environments.

The choice of substance did not seem to alter the long-term therapeutic outcome. Patients who took LSD and those who took psilocybin experienced largely identical improvements in their daily mental health.

Following the therapy, patients reported large reductions in their tendencies to ruminate, catastrophize, and blame themselves for negative life events. They also demonstrated an increased capacity for positive reappraisal, which means they could more easily find a constructive perspective in difficult situations. These conceptual shifts align with psychological theories that consider rigid thinking to be a primary maintenance factor for severe depression.

While the long-term clinical benefits were similar across both substances, the acute physical experiences differed notably. The data indicated that LSD produced a longer, sustained plateau of intense subjective effects. Psilocybin caused a similar peak of intensity, but the overall duration of the psychoactive experience was noticeably shorter.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165178126000533

It’s a topic that needs further research.

One big flaw in studies such as that one: there is no control group getting a placebo drug.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2847667

Good thing you can make
Them for like 20’bucks

The problem with this finding is that severe depression is actually quite easy to disrupt in the short term. Ketamine disrupts it. Deep brain stimulation disrupts it. Even epileptic seizures have been shown to disrupt it, which is why we previously used electroshock as a first-line treatment for depression. I was taught in grad school that simply keeping someone awake for 48 hours or so significantly decreases depression.

So given that it seems just about any significant jolt to the system seems to knock down depression for a while, what does this sturdy really tell us about psychedelics?