New Study: Psychological Therapy & Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy in Treating Depression

Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (PAT) is a novel intervention for depressive symptoms, typically delivered with additional psychological therapy sessions. A new systemic review of 12 controlled clinical trials with 733 participants sought to evaluate how psychological therapy pre-and-post PAT treatment impacted clinical outcomes.

Although a combination of pharmacological and psychological therapy is almost universally employed in PAT protocols, most research to date has been primarily focused on the safety and efficacy of the psychedelic substance itself, leaving the psychological therapy components poorly understood and without clear guidelines. This lack of systemic research has led to uncertainty about whether or not psychological therapy in general is even necessary; or if psychedelic experience alone is sufficient to drive therapeutically meaningful change.

The results, published in JAMA, found that a greater quantity of preparation therapy (prior to administering PAT) resulted in significantly larger reductions of depressive symptoms. These findings highlight a potential key role of preparation in optimizing PAT outcomes, contributing to a growing volume of evidence that traditional counseling services and interventions can work cooperatively with new pharmacological interventions with PAT.

Likewise, longer follow-up durations after PAT were linked to smaller symptom reductions, sustaining the treatment outcomes for a longer duration. Researchers suggest that this is a potential area for future research or trials, that could aim to standardize follow-up intervals and examine symptom trajectories over longer time frames to better understand maintenance and relapse patterns.

Overall, the implications of these results provide evidence that the efficacy of psychedelic treatment models is likely shaped substantially by the therapeutic context in which it is embedded. For more information, read the full journal article here.