Do `behavioral psychedelics' help patients make lasting, positive
change?

Date:
March 16, 2022
Source:
University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences
Summary:
Psychedelics may find new, legitimate roles in treatment for
anxiety, depression, stress disorders, addiction, and other mental
and behavioral health problems. But ensuring they do requires
developing rigorous, standardized methods to study and apply the
results, according to a new report.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Despite their reputation as illicit drugs, psychedelics may find new, legitimate roles in treatment for anxiety, depression, stress disorders, addiction, and other mental and behavioral health problems. But ensuring
they do requires developing rigorous, standardized methods to study and
apply the results, according to a new report.


==========================================================================
In a perspective published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, researchers
from UCLA Health and Harvard Medical School coin the term "behavioral psychedelics" - - "the study of psychedelics to foster intentional
changes in habits and behaviors to improve health and resilience."
"Changing human behavior may sound simple but is exceedingly difficult, especially for behaviors that arise from years of thinking and acting in relatively rigid, routinized ways," write the authors, George Slavich,
PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at UCLA and
research scientist at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, and Edmund Neuhaus, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Harvard. "One emerging strategy for accomplishing behavior change involves using psychedelic compounds to make the mind more malleable and open." According to the authors, "psychedelics-assisted psychotherapy" may
provide many health benefits and even cost savings, but the current
therapeutic approach is poorly targeted.

"Looking forward, we believe that further refinement is needed to operationalize and test [the] components to establish a best-practice
standard of care for treating psychiatric, addiction, somatic, and
behavioral health problems," they said.

The authors say their behavioral psychedelics concept is intended to
develop "targeted approaches for therapeutic change that help people
achieve enduring functional improvements in self-care, social connection,
and family, school, and community responsibilities to help them live
the life they desire." "Psychedelic compounds have the potential to turbocharge the process of transforming the mind, and the race to realize
their benefits is in full swing.

To maximize these benefits, we believe this work should include behavior
as a treatment target with measurable treatment metrics to establish
best practices and guidelines," Slavich and Neuhaus write.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_California_-_Los_Angeles_Health_Sciences.

Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Edmund C. Neuhaus, George M. Slavich. Behavioral Psychedelics:
Integrating Mind and Behavior to Improve Health and
Resilience. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2022; 13 DOI:
10.3389/fpsyt.2022.821208 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220316173309.htm

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