The Clinical Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy Training Initiative

Over the last 50 years, we have witnessed a tremendous amount of evidence supporting the use of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy as a safe and effective treatment tool for severe, and often treatment-resistant, mental illnesses when all else has failed. Much of this work can be found here and has been sponsored by The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Thanks to MAPS and many other dedicated clinicians and researchers, MDMA is currently being evaluated for use as a therapeutic tool in conjunction with psychotherapy as a novel treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in an FDA Phase 3 trial, with extraordinarily promising results to date. The results have been so promising in fact that the FDA has given MDMA-assisted psychotherapy a breakthrough therapy designation. This FDA Phase 3 trial is currently recruiting subjects and interested parties can learn more here.

In addition to MDMA, psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy has also received breakthrough therapy status from the FDA and is currently in phase 2 trials for depression. Learn more about the ongoing research studies at the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research here. You can read more from the Johns Hopkins psychedelic literature database here.

The Board is also proud to announce two pivotal publications in the psychedelic medicine space: The first in collaboration with Dr. Allison Feduccia PhD of Psychedelic.support, entitled: The need for establishing best practices and gold standards in psychedelic medicine highlighting the importance of standardizing trainings for clinicians of all levels to maximize patient safety.

The second in collaboration with Dr. Candace Lewis PhD, Dr. Joseph Tafur MD, Dr. Rachel Yehuda PhD, Dr. Ben Kelmendi MD, Dr. David M. Rabin MD, PhD, Dr. Berra Yazar-Klosinski PhD, and Dr. Baruch Rael Cahn MD, PhD entitled: Pilot study suggests DNA methylation of the glucocorticoid receptor gene (NR3C1) is associated with MDMA-assisted therapy treatment response for severe PTSD describing an epigenetic mechanism of MDMA-assisted therapy to reverse trauma-induced methylation patterns of a glucocorticord receptor in the MAPS MDMA Phase 3 FDA trial.