Behavioral Psychedelics: Integrating Mind and Behavior to Improve Health and Resilience

Psychedelics are being explored for treating mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, PTSD, and addiction, but there is no standard approach for combining them with psychotherapy or measuring their effectiveness. The authors propose the concept of behavioral psychedelics, defined as the study of using psychedelics to intentionally change habits and behaviors to improve health and resilience. They argue that psychedelics might reduce chronic disease risk linked to mental and behavioral rigidity, but the field needs to develop best practices and guidelines for inducing lasting behavioral changes.

Study at a glance

Abstract

One of the most recent and potentially promising advancements in the health sciences has involved the attempted use of psychedelics for treating mental and behavioral health problems, such as anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and addiction. Despite surging scientific and public interest in this work, however, we presently have no standard of care or consensus regarding how best to combine psychotherapy and psychedelics or to assess effectiveness. We discuss these timely issues here through the lens of behavioral psychedelics , which we define as the study of psychedelics to foster intentional changes in habits and behaviors to improve health and resilience. Psychedelics may have the potential to reduce chronic disease risk caused by mental and behavioral rigidity. To fully realize this potential, though, we believe the field must establish best practices and guidelines that include how to induce lasting changes in behavior.