A Review of Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy for Cancer Patients with Emotional Distress.

Objective(s): The aim of this study is to explore the viability of incorporating the use of psychedelics into psychotherapy with patients suffering from cancer for the purpose of palliative care and enabling the reduction of distressing psychiatric symptomatology.

Data Sources:: A literature search was conducted through PubMed, JMIR, MDPI, IOP Science, EBSCOHost, Karger, BioMed Central, PsychINFO, and SpringerOpen electronic journal databases.

Study Selection: Inclusion criteria; (1) peer-reviewed articles published between 1969-2023; (2) studies published in English; (3) studies that related to psychedelic assisted psychotherapy with terminally ill patients.

Data Extraction: Independent extraction by multiple observers

Data Synthesis: It was found that psychotherapy enriched through the use of compounds like LSD, psilocybin, and N,N-Dipropyltryptamine (DPT) led to reductions in emotional distress, in this case depression, anxiety, and specifically fear of death in patients with cancer. Additionally, several studies found that higher doses of LSD and psilocybin led to long term changes measured at posttreatment follow-up. The greatest long-term effects found from the articles reviewed was at 8 weeks follow up after using psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy to improve psycho-social-spiritual well-being. DPT-assisted psychotherapy was also found to induce “peak experiences” and was found to have beneficial effects similar to those seen in LSD-assisted psychotherapy such as an increase in quality of life and a reduction in psychological distress.

Conclusions: The benefits of incorporating psychoactive compounds into psychotherapy involve enhanced emotional processing of the emotional, existential, and psychiatric distress that surrounds the diagnosis of cancer. At the present time, this is thought to be due to the altered mental status that these compounds induce. In addition, these compounds are also thought to increase the strength of the therapeutic alliance by facilitating openness to experience and reducing resistance, which are common barriers to rehabilitation.

Author(s) Disclosures: None