Speaker Bio
Natalie Gukasyan, M.D. is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center. After receiving her M.D. from Tulane University School of Medicine Dr. Gukasyan completed her internship and residency in psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. She went on to complete a NIDA T32 fellowship in behavioral pharmacology under the mentorship of Dr. Roland Griffiths, focusing on safety and efficacy of psilocybin-assisted therapy for people with mood and eating disorders. Before joining the faculty at Columbia, Dr. Gukasyan served as Medical Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, where her research also spanned other clinical aspects of psychedelics including placebo and psychotherapy effects in treatment, as well as medication interactions.
ICPR 2024 Abstract
The (new) great psychotherapy debate: the role of adjunctive therapy in psychedelic interventions and implications for long-term outcomes
As the potential clinical approval of psychedelics draws closer, the necessity and significance of psychotherapy in these treatments have become a heated topic of discussion. In the early parts of "second wave" of psychedelic research, clinical trials incorporated substantial amounts of therapy, believed to be crucial for both safety and efficacy. However, there has been ongoing debate over the practicality of such therapy-intensive models in real-world clinical settings, given their resource demands. In more recent, larger multi-site studies, the therapy provided was less extensive, and some of these studies reported outcomes that were less durable than those observed in earlier research. Some have questioned whether psychotherapy alongside psychedelics is necessary at all, while others counter that it is inextricable from any clinical psychedelic intervention.
This presentation aims to dissect this complex debate, leveraging insights from recent studies. A focal point will be the analysis of a 12-month follow-up on patients treated with psilocybin for major depressive disorder [1]. Secondary analysis looking at therapeutic alliance, a key component of psychotherapy, will also be reviewed. The talk will explore the implications of these and other findings on the role of therapy and discuss the major unanswered questions that remain for the clinical application of psychedelics.
References
Gukasyan, N., Davis, A. K., Barrett, F. S., Cosimano, M. P., Sepeda, N. D., Johnson, M. W., & Griffiths, R. R. (2022). Efficacy and safety of psilocybin-assisted treatment for major depressive disorder: Prospective 12-month follow-up. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 36(2), 151–158.