Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of addictions: The future of addiction treatment?

Thursday, 24 October, 2019 - 15:10 to 15:20
Networking zone 3 (N3)

Abstract

Background: For the last few years, the interest of the scientific community in the therapeutical use of psychedelic substances as part of the treatment of addictions has been growing exponentially, pushed by the encouraging results of its efficacy and safety. Now a days, numerous researchers are exploring the treatment possibilities offered by substances like psilocybin, LSD, DMT (“ayahuasca”), MDMA, Ketamine or ibogaine, in the clinical settings, using a new treatment model known as “psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy” that is achieveing impressive results and might become the standard treatment in a near future.

Methods: Following the published literature from the last few years on the topic of psychedelics for the treatment of addictions and the neuropsychopharmacological mechanisms they trigger in the brain, this new treatment model and some of its clinical results are briefly presented.

Results: The very promisiong results of these clinical trials and the treatment model used, along with the posible mechanism of action, that relies more on the subjective experince of the patient than in the neurochemical change.

Conclussions: The results of these novel treatment model are promising enough to grant further research and a great interest in the field of mental health and addiction treatments, and might become the standard treatment in a future. It also offers a new paradigm in mental health treatments, based more in the subjective experience and less in the neurochemical chronic interventions.

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