Neuroscience Section: Public Guest Lecture with Maximilian Heck

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NAVIGATING THROUGH THE EXPERIENCE:

POTENTIAL SYNERGIES BETWEEN MINDFULNESS, ABSORPTION, AND CRUCIAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHEDELIC EXPERIENCES INCLUDING ASSOCIATED PERSISTENT CHANGES

Dear enthusiasts of psychedelics, mindfulness practices & their therapeutic potential,

would you – as we do – also like to know how psychedelic experiences and mindfulness practice can synergize with each other to improve therapeutic outcomes?

We, the Neuroscience Section, are thrilled to announce that M.Sc. Maximilian Heck, a former student of Dr. Ulrich Ott, will elaborate on this question for us on Wednesday, 15th of March, at 7 pm (CET)!

Abstract

With the rise in public interest and a plethora of recently published high-quality studies on the subject, psychedelics-assisted therapy research continues to flourish. Efficacy studies and neurological insights pose impressive results, compensating for unanswered questions in previous psychedelic research, While these progresses underline the importance and potential of psychedelics in therapy, research still lacks a certain understanding of underlying mechanisms of psychedelic-assisted intervention from a psychotherapeutic perspective. The development of a framework for psychedelic-assisted therapy continues to be a concurrent research topic. A recent approach postulates potential synergies between psychedelic experiences and mindfulness practice as a part of a preparation phase. A retrospective survey study was conducted to differentiate certain aspects of psychedelic experiences with the intent of deepening the understanding of underlying mechanisms. Furthermore, a structural equational model was used to investigate the prediction of these aspects of psychedelic experiences and their associated persistent positive and negative changes through mindfulness practice and its associated skills, absorption, and mindfulness. Results indicate that insight during the psychedelic experience represents a significant predictor of increased persistent positive and decreased negative changes, thus, providing clues to an underlying mechanism of psychedelic interventions. Absorption appears to facilitate deeper immersion, thereby increasing the positive potential of the psychedelic experience, while also representing a direct risk factor for persistent negative changes. Mindfulness seems to reduce persistent negative changes; this relationship is explained in part by a reduced occurrence of challenging experiences. Implications for the usability of the aforementioned synergies in a therapeutic framework are discussed under additional consideration of qualitative answers of psychedelic users.