Speaker Bio
PD Dr. Kurt Stocker, a psychologist and linguist, is a research associate in psychopharmacology (University Hospital Basel) and a project leader for consciousness studies (ETH Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich). He investigates how the mind works. Over the last years, his research focus has shifted from how the mind works in ordinary states of consciousness to how it works in non-ordinary states of consciousness with a primary focus on the psychedelic experience. As part of the research team in Basel, he is currently involved in quantitative and qualitative psychedelic-psychometric research with LSD, psilocybin, DMT, and mescaline with healthy individuals as well as with patients. One of the goals of this work is a comprehensive measurement of the psychology of the psychedelic experience for both research and therapy.
ICPR 2024 Abstract
Examining the Phenomenological-Autobiographical-Existential Psychedelic Scale (PAE-PS) in placebo-controlled LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, and DMT studies
Theoretical Background/Rationale: Psychedelic psychometrics has gaps in covering phenomenological, autobiographical, and existential experiences.
Research Question/Hypothesis: Hitherto insufficiently covered phenomenological, autobiographical, and existential themes occur in acute psychedelic phases and some may correlate with antidepressant response.
Methods/Analysis: A literature-review-based questionnaire named Phenomenological-Autobiographical-Existential Psychedelic Scale (PAE-PS) was devised with the following themes/subthemes: phenomenological (visual, e.g., deeply impressive geometry; and religious-like, e.g., entities, primal ground of all existence); autobiographical (personal-problem addressing, age regression/progression); and existential (human condition). Confirmatory factor analysis was performed with themes/subthemes as factors from data of five placebo-controlled clinical trials with moderate/high doses of LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, and intravenous DMT (304 PAE-PS measurements, 126 healthy participants). Additionally, correlations of PAE-PS subscales with Inventory for Depressive Symptomatology were performed (25 patients with major depressive disorder; measured after receiving moderate and high dose LSD treatment). Furthermore, semi-structured interviews with PAE-PS themes were conducted and analyzed qualitatively in a (not placebo-controlled) ayahuasca-analog study (10 healthy participants).
Main Findings: The following new factors were confirmed with good internal consistency: human condition, visuals, primal ground of all existence, bodiless/timeless existence, opposite transcendence/void, problem-addressing. The factors human condition, visuals, primal ground of all existence, and bodiless/timeless existence correlated with depression reduction 12 weeks after LSD administration. Qualitative analysis revealed insights into specific examples and further differentiations of religious-like and autobiographical experiences.
Conclusion: This study yields a new psychometric tool to measure hitherto insufficiently covered aspects of the psychedelic experience and also shows some first therapeutic promise.