Imperial College London
Alternate

Professor Robin Carhart-Harris

Faculty of Medicine, Department of Brain Sciences

Visiting Professor
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7992r.carhart-harris

 
 
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Assistant

 

Miss Bruna Cunha +44 (0)20 7594 7992

 
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Location

 

Burlington DanesHammersmith Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Bremler:2023:10.1038/s41598-023-41145-x,
author = {Bremler, R and Katati, N and Shergill, P and Erritzoe, D and Carhart-Harris, R},
doi = {10.1038/s41598-023-41145-x},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
pages = {1--15},
title = {Case analysis of long-term negative psychological responses to psychedelics},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-41145-x},
volume = {13},
year = {2023}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Recent controversies have arisen regarding claims of uncritical positive regard and hype surrounding psychedelic drugs and their therapeutic potential. Criticisms have included that study designs and reporting styles bias positive over negative outcomes. The present study was motivated by a desire to address this alleged bias by intentionally focusing exclusively on negative outcomes, defined as self-perceived ‘negative’ psychological responses lasting for at least 72 h after psychedelic use. A strong justification for this selective focus was that it might improve our ability to capture otherwise missed cases of negative response, enabling us to validate their existence and better examine their nature, as well as possible causes, which could inspire risk-mitigation strategies. Via advertisements posted on social media, individuals were recruited who reported experiencing negative psychological responses to psychedelics (defined as classic psychedelics plus MDMA) lasting for greater than 72 h since using. Volunteers were directed to an online questionnaire requiring quantitative and qualitative input. A key second phase of this study involved reviewing all of the submitted cases, identifying the most severe—e.g., where new psychiatric diagnoses were made or pre-existing symptoms made worse post psychedelic-use—and inviting these individuals to participate in a semi-structured interview with two members of our research team, during which participant experiences and backgrounds were examined in greater depth. Based on the content of these interviews, a brief summary of each case was compiled, and an explorative thematic analysis was used to identify salient and consistent themes and infer common causes. 32 individuals fully completed an onboarding questionnaire (56% male, 53% < age 25); 37.5% of completers had a psychiatric diagnosis that emerged after their psychedelic experience, and anxiety symptoms arose or worsened in 87%.
AU  - Bremler,R
AU  - Katati,N
AU  - Shergill,P
AU  - Erritzoe,D
AU  - Carhart-Harris,R
DO  - 10.1038/s41598-023-41145-x
EP  - 15
PY  - 2023///
SN  - 2045-2322
SP  - 1
TI  - Case analysis of long-term negative psychological responses to psychedelics
T2  - Scientific Reports
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-41145-x
UR  - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-41145-x
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/106359
VL  - 13
ER  -
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