By Paul Tullis — 2021
Regulators will soon grapple with how to safely administer powerful psychedelics for treating depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
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CLEAR ALL
Like most people of color in the United States, psychotherapist and researcher Monnica Williams has experienced myriad forms of racism. Early in her career, understanding its effects on her mind and body motivated her to help clients address their own racial trauma in therapy.
We’re seeing an explosion of medical research into psychedelics. Psilocybin, or shrooms, to treat major depressive disorder. Ayahuasca, a psychotropic plant medicine from the Amazon, and ibogaine, a potent hallucinogen from Africa, to treat addiction. LSD for anxiety.
These substances are being touted as a game-changing intervention for mental health. But it’s not clear if their promise will be accessible to all.
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In the last two decades, researchers have started to reexamine psychedelics for their therapeutic potential. Though initial results seem promising, the research has a significant shortcoming: the lack of racial and ethnic diversity among research teams and study participants.
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A new study finds widespread exclusion of minorities in psychedelic research.
Through this treatment plan, the patient was able to “reconceptualize her trauma” and “was able to move through difficult memories and emotions rather than letting them consume her,” explained U of O associate professor, Monnica Williams.
A recent study found that even a single positive psychedelic experience may ease mental health symptoms associated with racial trauma experienced by Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).
Badass women making waves in the psychedelic movement, from research to drug policy reform.
The exuberant “renaissance” of studies researching psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in the past twenty years has not sufficiently included the enrollment of racially diverse participants, a problem that psychedelic science and clinical research shares with mainstream psychiatry
Amazonian healing traditions collide with Western medical sensibilities.