Scientific Reports
November 27, 2025
Guy Simon, Nir Tadmor, Michael Skragge et al.
6 citations
A mixed-methods investigation of 608 individuals who experienced post-psychedelic difficulties found that 41.8% linked these difficulties to early trauma. Those reporting trauma-related difficulties were older, more often female, more likely to have a prior mental-illness diagnosis, and more likely to use psychedelics in guided settings. They reported more emotional but fewer perceptual difficulties. Interviews with 18 participants revealed four themes: direct trauma re-experiencing (39%, including some with no prior memory), symbolic/somatic re-embodiment (22%), fragmentation and confusion (50%), and varied post-experience trajectories (50% positive integration, 28% mixed, 22% re-traumatization). Uncertainty about memory veridicality caused ongoing distress. The work underscores the need for trauma-informed psychedelic practices.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
January 15, 2025
Nir Tadmor, Demian Halperin, Guy Simon
6 citations
Mental health professionals who have personally taken psychedelics may gain enduring positive changes that benefit their clinical work. Interviews with eight such clinicians revealed a multi-faceted model of transformation covering interpersonal and emotional growth, changed relationships with death and nature, and deepened concepts of love, meaning, and spirituality. These personal shifts also enhanced their therapeutic skills. The findings suggest that clinicians involved in psychedelic integration should themselves have undergone altered states of consciousness, not only for empathy but because of intrinsic positive effects on their human and professional capacities.
Eur J Psychotraumatol
November 12, 2025
Guy Simon, Maya Gal-Birman, Nir Tadmor et al.
5 citations
This qualitative study explores how survivors of the Nova festival massacre experienced collective trauma and the potential role of psychedelics in their recovery. The research identifies multisystemic resilience and recovery pathways, suggesting that psychedelic experiences may facilitate emotional processing, meaning-making, and post-traumatic growth among survivors. The findings indicate that psychedelics can support healing from collective trauma by enhancing psychological health, resilience, and a sense of connection, though the study emphasizes the need for careful integration within therapeutic and community contexts.
The International journal on drug policy
January 1, 2026
Guy Simon, Nir Tadmor, Demian Halperin
2 citations
Psychedelics can produce lasting changes in attitudes and behavior, with outcomes shaped by both the drug and the context of use ('set and setting'). As these substances move from traditional settings into clinical environments, a tension arises between authenticity and standardization. Drawing on Walter Benjamin's concept of 'aura,' this article examines what may be lost or gained when psychedelic experiences are reproduced in institutional settings. It explores how set and setting contribute to authenticity, analyzes the implications of medicalization, and considers the roles of ritual and commodification. The authors propose ways to integrate traditional context with clinical approaches to preserve psychedelics' transformative potential.
Research Square
August 21, 2025
Guy Simon, Nir Tadmor, Michael Skragge et al.
2 citations
A mixed-methods study of 608 individuals who experienced lasting psychological difficulties after using psychedelics found that 41.8% linked those difficulties to early childhood trauma. Those with trauma links were older, more often female, more likely to have a prior mental-illness diagnosis, and more likely to use psychedelics in guided settings. They reported more emotional but fewer perceptual difficulties. Interviews with 18 participants revealed four themes: direct trauma re-experiencing (39%, some with no prior memory), symbolic/somatic re-embodiment (22%), fragmentation and confusion (50%), and varied outcomes: predominantly positive integration (50%), mixed effects (28%), or re-traumatization (22%). Uncertainty about memory accuracy contributed to ongoing distress. The findings underscore the need for trauma-informed approaches in psychedelic use.
Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England)
May 1, 2026
Guy Simon, Maya Gal-Birman, Nir Tadmor et al.
In the October 7, 2023, attack at the Nova rave, 45 survivors were interviewed using a mixed-methods phenomenological design. Participants used classic psychedelics (24), empathogens (19), or ketamine (2). A dissociative phenomenon termed "adaptive psychedelic dissociation" emerged, combining emotional detachment, derealization, depersonalization, automatic behaviors, and preserved functionality. Participants' awareness of their substance use created an "epistemic container" that helped contain traumatic input in real time but complicated later meaning-making. Psychedelic effects appeared suppressed during acute trauma and resurged afterward. Substance use had a predominantly positive impact on immediate survival (75%-79%) and emotional coping (83%-84%), but mixed outcomes in aftermath processing (42%-53% positive, 25%-26% negative). This paradox suggests acute adaptive benefits with integration challenges.
Research Square
February 2, 2026
Ziv Ben-Zion, Guy Simon, Teddy Lazebnik
Large language models can be prompted to generate narratives that closely mimic human accounts of psychedelic experiences, but they simulate the form without genuine phenomenology. A dual-metric evaluation compared 3,000 LLM-generated narratives from five models against 1,085 human trip reports. Psychedelic induction prompts increased semantic similarity to human reports from a mean of 0.156 to 0.548 and mystical-experience scores from 0.046 to 0.748. Models produced substance-specific linguistic styles but uniformly high mystical intensity across substances. This dissociation between linguistic mimicry and lack of experiential content raises safety concerns about anthropomorphism and the potential for AI to amplify distress or delusional ideation in vulnerable users.