Abstract

Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is currently the most exciting development in psychiatric therapy research. However, the clinical studies available so far do not show that this could really be a fundamentally different form of therapy. On the contrary, they suggest that it may merely be a useful addition to the available psychiatric therapy armamentarium. This talk will outline what studies are needed to show that psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy represents a fundamentally new treatment paradigm. However, it can only change the psychiatric first-line therapy (and not eventually stand at the end of a therapy algorithm) if we design future clinical studies in such a way that they allow proof of superiority over the available therapies. Characteristics of studies that enable the proof of the salutogenetic potential of psychedelics (and thus the fundamental difference from classic antidepressants) are outlined here.