Introduction
Psychedelics, also known as hallucinogens, are psychoactive substances that modify perception, mood, and cognitive processes and cause an individual to hallucinate. There are several kinds of psychedelics - naturally occurring in trees, vines, seeds, mushrooms, and plants- made in laboratories.
What Are The Types Of Psychedelics?
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Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD): Is obtained from an Ergot, a fungus that grows on rye (related to grain, crop, and a forage crop).
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Psilocybin: This is a naturally occurring substance found in mushrooms.
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Mescaline: Emanates from the “Mexican peyote and San Pedro cactus” and has equivalent effects to LSD (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)
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Diemethyl-Tryptamine (DMT): It is structurally analogous to psilocin, an alkaloid in psilocybin mushrooms.
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4-Bromo-2,5-Dimethoxy-Phenethylamine: It is both a psychedelic and a mild entactogenic (entactogen means ‘touching within').
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Peyote (Lophophora Williamsii): Obtained from powerful psychedelic cactus, growing as ‘buttons’ close to the ground.
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Ketamine: Veterinarians use it as an animal anesthetic. When used, it causes users to dissociate from reality.
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3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA): A substance notorious for producing heightened sensory experiences and promoting positive emotions by impacting dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin regulations. These chemical transmitters can stimulate feelings of connection and euphoria.
Where Are The Psychedelics Mostly Used?
Cancer and other life-threatening illnesses are connected with existential and psychological discomfort, which are distinct and extremely taxing types of suffering for which few effective treatments exist. A very intriguing prospective function for psychedelic-assisted therapy in this clinical environment has been suggested by recent clinical trials utilizing strict methodologies. The key significance of the mystical-type experience and the common themes in participant accounts of their psychedelic experiences suggest that this psychospiritual intervention is ideally suited to address the specific and basic concerns of many people coping with cancer who are in the last phase of their lives.
For a number of reasons, the use of psychedelics in oncology and palliative care is intriguing. The loss of meaning or purpose in life causes existential distress in many people with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. This anguish can be accompanied by feelings of helplessness, demoralization, burdensomeness, and a wish for a speedier death. These characteristics are frequently at the heart of clinically severe anxiety and depression as well, and they can significantly lower patients' quality of life.
What Are The Effects Of Psychedelics?
Psychedelic effects depend on patient to patient. There is no safe drug use level, so taking care while consuming any drug is crucial.
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Feelings of euphoria (a sense of happiness and excitement).
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Sense of relaxation and well-being.
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Hallucinations (seeing and hearing unreal things).
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Confusion, clumsiness, numbness, and trouble concentrating.
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Dizziness and blurred vision.
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Tachycardia (fast or irregular heartbeat).
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Rapid breathing.
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Vomiting.
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Sweating and chills.
Psychedelics are used based on the factors like:
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Size, weight, and health of the individual.
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Drugs interaction (reactivity with other regular drugs).
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Dose (the amount taken).
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The potency of the drug.
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The drug's pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics describe how the body reacts to and processes the medication.
How Did Psychedelics Help Terminally Ill Individuals?
Integrating psychedelic-assisted therapies within palliative care alleviates suffering and potentially improves the quality of life in long-term debilitating illnesses over their lifetimes.
Psychedelics are typically considered recreational drugs that persuade hours-long episodes of hallucination, which help the individual with deliberate illness to cope with inner emotions and hope to escape reality or enhance their creative process. The psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is a holistic, supportive approach that has shown miraculous outcomes in some existential distress patients with terminal illnesses suffering physically and mentally. Still, there are no proven effective pharmacological interventions in particular.
Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy exclusively treats patients suffering from terminal illnesses, such as incurable cancer or other diseases. These patients tend to develop secondary mental stress like the void of hope, and depressed mood, which comes with adverse effects of chemotherapies and medications that can further exaggerate feelings, emotions, pain threshold, depression, and suicidality. These patients require a receptive and positive healing environment for their cultural, spiritual, and emotional needs during illness and much-needed relief to cope with a mental and physical health state.
Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy form of mental healthcare can potentially help the patient on palliative care who are prone to develop secondary mental illnesses like
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Depressive Disorders: A subtle sign of depression in the terminally ill is pain that does not respond to treatment as expected.
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Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Death obsessions are a fear that someone close may die that can be caused by various underlying factors such as anxiety and depression.
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Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): PTSD symptoms, including hyperarousal, negative mood and thoughts, and traumatic re-experiencing, can impact end-of-life symptoms, including pain, mood, and poor sleep. Thus, increased symptoms may lead to increased end-of-life healthcare utilization.
What Is the Mechanism of Action of Psychedelics?
Patients receiving psychotherapy with psychedelics may experience greater clarity, insights, and a sense of connection. Deep spiritual insights can also occur during a session, which can oblige terminally ill individuals to make meaning out of the pain they are encountering.
Patients receiving psychotherapy with psychedelics may experience greater clarity, insights, and a sense of connection and psychedelics typify the alteration of consciousness. The phasic outcomes of psychedelics have effects on neurotransmitters in the brains. The neurotransmitter is a chemical substance that carries signals in the brain and helps to boost feelings and mood. Five types of neurotransmitters are epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine, acetylcholine, and serotonin.
Psychedelic functions as
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First, stimulate and enhance serotonin.
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Secondly, saturate and overload the serotonin system.
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Thirdly, release the habitual serotonin repression of the dopaminergic (dopamine acting receptors and pathway) system.
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Lastly, resistance to normal reuptake mechanisms locks out serotonergic transmitter sites and saturates the serotonergic (serotonergic acting receptors and pathway) system, habituating the receptors and reducing the regulatory functions of the serotonergic system, which results in a release of the dopamine system normally repressed by serotonin. The deduction of serotonergic and noradrenergic modulation (control) results in the ascendance of the dopaminergic and acetylcholine systems that deliver a variety of significant visual effects, particularly hallucinations and dreaming.
Psychedelic interruption of the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuit (CSTC pathway in the brain that controls movement execution, habit formation, and reward) inhibits the lower brain structures' sensory gating systems, resulting in enhanced availability of information normally repressed by these systems.
Conclusion
Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy help in the alteration of consciousness through the disruption of normal brain control activities can be achieved by various means, including psychological, physical, and physiological stimulation. The main goal of this approach is to provide soothing environments internally and externally. One can miraculously show positive health effects to achieve a sense of relief and positive attributes of life only under the supervision of medical and mental health care professionals to provide the best shot of palliative care with the psychological approach.
