Logan Neitzke-Spruill, Caroline Beit, Jill Robinson, Kai Blevins, Joel Reynolds, Nicholas G. Evans, Amy L. McGuire
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Psychedelic experiences are often compared to “transformative experiences” due to their potential to change how people think and behave. This study empirically examines whether psychedelic experiences constitute transformative experiences. Given psychedelics’ prospective applications as treatments for mental health disorders, this study also explores neuroethical issues raised by the possibility of biomedically directed transformation—namely, consent and moral psychopharmacology. To achieve these aims, we used both inductive and deductive coding techniques to analyze transcripts from interviews with 26 participants in psychedelic retreats. Results indicate that psychedelic experiences can constitute transformative experiences. Twenty participants reported experiences or insights that were seemingly inaccessible or impossible to attain if not for the psychoactive effects of psychedelics. All participants besides one reported some change in identity, values, beliefs, desires, and behavior—changes in behavior being the most common. Participants also reported feeling capable deciding to use psychedelics in part due to information seeking prior to their retreats. Finally, several participants reported an enhanced capacity for enacting changes in their lives. Our results underscore both the importance of subjective embodiment to transformation and the role of transformative agency in shaping outcomes of the psychedelic experience. We examine our results relative to neuroethical issues and advocate for centering the person in psychedelic research and neuroethical inquiry about psychedelics to avoid pitfalls associated with psychedelics’ potential as moral psychopharmacological agents.
期刊介绍:
Neuroethics is an international, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to academic articles on the ethical, legal, political, social and philosophical questions provoked by research in the contemporary sciences of the mind and brain; especially, but not only, neuroscience, psychiatry and psychology. The journal publishes articles on questions raised by the sciences of the brain and mind, and on the ways in which the sciences of the brain and mind illuminate longstanding debates in ethics and philosophy.