Max Wolff

*psychosocial

Has the time come to stop using control groups in trials of psychosocial interventions? Click on the article title to read more.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Has the time come to stop using "control groups" in trials of psychological interventions? — asks Pim Cuijpers.

This discussion concerns psychedelic therapy, which is a (pharmacologically catalyzed) psychological intervention, just as well as any other form of psychotherapy.

Link below.

Key competencies for psychedelic treatment in real-world mental health care settings Psychedelic treatments are extending beyond research units and into hospitals, outpatient clinics, and community practices. Contrasting the constraine…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

From our recent article "Key competencies for psychedelic treatment in real-world mental health care settings"

Full-text link below.

Recovering memories under MDMA or psychedelics and the impact of The Tell, a few scattered thoughts and observations: kangaslampi.net/the-tell-and...

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Our new paper "Key competencies for psychedelic treatment in real-world mental health care settings" has just been published in General Hospital Psychiatry.

Full-text link below.

My article "Experiments in medicalization" on the Swiss and Australian efforts to enable psychedelic therapies outside of clinical trials but short of market approval has just come out in BioSocieties: www.nicolaslanglitz.de/ewExternalFi...

If by "hype" you mean the unusually high level of attention this research area gets outside academia, especially from investors and media focused on the business side, then agreed. It is very strange seeing researchers and finance/tech people regularly liking and commenting on each other’s posts.

Thanks, I agree with much of the analysis of Linkedin but I don't think it explains (more or less directly) why the field of psychedelic research seems to have an exceptional affinity to it, compared to other fields. Or?

Bluesky now platform of choice for science community - except for the psychedelic science community, which seems to have chosen Linkedin.

What does this say about psychedelic science?

Germany Establishes EU’s First Psilocybin Compassionate Access Program - Psychedelic Alpha Germany has become the first EU country to allow legal access to psilocybin under a compassionate use program for treatment-resistant depression. Unlike other countries’ pre-approval pathways, Germany...

BREAKING: German regulators have green-lit the EU's first psilocybin compassionate access program.

Unlike other countries’ pre-approval pathways, Germany’s does not require case-by-case regulatory approval and may see insurers cover costs.

Details: psychedelicalpha.com/news/germany...

Out of curiosity, how did you know it was AI-generated? I've also suspected AI involvement in some reviewer comments I've received, but not always sure whether comments were fully AI-generated or only refined using AI.

Regulamentar Psicadélicos como Ferramentas, Não como Tratamentos | SPACE Portugal — Sociedade Portuguesa de Aplicação Clínica de Enteógenos O artigo de Wolff et al. (2025), "Reframing psychedelic regulation: Tools, not treatments", constitui uma contribuição oportuna e...

Our recent article "Reframing psychedelic regulation: Tools, not treatments" is discussed on the SPACE blog (in Portuguese): space.com.pt/blogue/regul...

Europe Invests in the Future of Psychedelic Science: INTEGRATE Doctoral Network Launches with €4.3 Million in Funding — PAREA A second major EU-funded project in psychedelic science, following PsyPal, will start in the coming months. INTEGRATE will be a doctoral training network supported by €4.3 million in EU funding throug...

Big news for psychedelic research in Europe:

The new €4.3M INTEGRATE project will train 16 PhDs across Europe. Funded by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, it marks a major step forward. PAREA is proud to support by hosting secondments.

More here: parea.eu/parea-news/i...

Small feasibility study testing MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for major depression, unsurprisingly with promising results, from Norway.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Doing psychedelic research with Spanish-speaking populations & interested in avoidance/acceptance?

There is now a culturally decentered Spanish APEQ version designed to work equally well across the Spanish-speaking world:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

In general, an analogy between two categories cannot be invalidated merely by identifying a single difference between them. E.g., one should not reject analogies between ducks & chickens on the basis that ducks swim while chickens do not. Both are still birds despite this particular difference.

That's an interesting analogy that we do not actually draw. To be sure, we don't say that psychotherapy & surgery (or psychedelics & anesthetics) are actually the same thing. There are of course differences. E.g. the idea of a "psychosurgeon" goes against what is known about how psychotherapy works.

We explicitly say that "under favorable circumstances, psychedelic use can have beneficial effects outside of clinical settings" & we encourage "keeping an open mind to the theoretical possibility that psychedelics could have safe and effective psychiatric applications independent of psychotherapy."

New Viewpoint: Countries allowing assisted suicide should offer candidates psychedelics and support to change their minds. If we truly value life, shouldn't we explore every therapeutic option - even controversial ones - before accepting that suffering is untreatable?
ja.ma/4l2gdls

This seems relevant to psychedelic research, where expectancy is still often viewed only as a baseline variable. We should also consider its dynamic changes, how (psychedelic & other) treatment experiences influence them, and their impact on outcomes.

@psybalazs.bsky.social
@theborislab.bsky.social

I think so too!

Looking forward to reading it!

Treatment with psychedelics is psychotherapy: beyond reductionism Treatment of psychiatric disorders with psychedelic substances represents one of the most promising current treatment approaches in psychiatry. Since its inception in the 1950s, therapy with psychedel...

That's one of the points we make here: www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

It's also especially true for psychedelics since their effects are especially context-dependent or, depending on the perspective (and especially for classical psychedelics), their main effect is enhanced context sensitivity.

I think psilocybin (vs MDMA) can look less like a psychotherapy (PT) tool when using a surface-level, descriptive definition of PT. That changes with a mechanism-based definition, e.g.: PT is the systematic shaping of a psychological context that facilitates specific psychological change mechanisms.

Enjoyed this recent paper about considering psychedelics as tools to accelerate psychotherapy vs interventions in and of themselves. doi.org/10.1177/2050... #psychedelicscience

Please join me next Wed at Einstein Center for Neurosciences Berlin 🇩🇪 for an in depth discussion about evidence and mechanisms in psychedelic therapies.

I'll finish with a brief spoiler about a new project coming on, in my new role at ULisbon 🇵🇹 💫

Vielen Dank. Wie auch schon der vorherige Artikel eine äußerst wertvolle Ressource!