Psychedelics and Prolonged Grief Disorder

Psychedelics such as psilocybin and MDMA may be a promising treatment avenue for Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD).

Randomized clinical trials demonstrated the efficacy of psilocybin in reducing symptom severity in depression and MDMA in reducing PTSD symptomatology.

Furthermore, psychedelics often produce subjective effects (such as transcendence, mystical experiences, and a sense of oneness) that may be uniquely relevant to the existential distress experienced in PGD.

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Psychological Flexibility and Psychedelics

In a new study, researchers found that psychological flexibility, several facets of mindfulness, and values-congruent living significantly improved following psilocybin and were maintained through week 16.

Additionally, improvements in psychological flexibility and experiential acceptance were strongly associated with reductions in depression severity following psilocybin.

Keep reading for the full article at Nature.com

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Psychedelics, Psychosis and Manic Symptoms

A new study analyzed data from the Swedish Twin Registry, a national dataset that includes self-reported drug use and psychotic and manic symptom occurrence.

The researchers’ analyses found no significant association between psychedelic use and psychotic symptoms, but in comparing identical twin pairs in which one had taken psychedelics while the other had not, the twin who’d tried psychedelics was more likely to report experiencing manic symptoms.

In the twin data researchers reviewed, mania was also strongly correlated with a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia and to bipolar I disorder.

In other words, those who experienced manic symptoms after psychedelic use may have been more genetically prone to mental illnesses.

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