Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
22 papers
This study surveyed 426 Filipino adults online during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic to see if perceived stress helps explain links between social support and mental health. Using standard questionnaires, the researchers found that lower perceived stress was linked to more positive feelings and less anxiety and depression when…
This paper reviews how people talk about and practice “psychedelic integration.” The authors say the term has many different definitions and many kinds of practices, which has created confusion. They present the first wide-ranging review and a new, synthesized definition and model of integration, plus a long list of integration…
Psychedelic Harm Reduction and Integration (PHRI) is a clinical model for working with people who use or are thinking about using psychedelics. It blends harm-reduction therapy with methods from psychedelic-assisted therapy, can be used in short or ongoing psychotherapy, and aims to be compassionate and non-stigmatizing rather than focused only…
This systematic review looked at clinical studies that paired psychedelics with a structured psychotherapy. It found that psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy can give promising results across many clinical conditions when given to carefully screened people in controlled settings, but some patients relapse or do not respond. The review highlights that individual and…
This article explains that integrative psychotherapy joins ideas and techniques from different therapy schools and focuses on shared, helpful elements such as the therapeutic relationship. It notes there are many psychotherapy models, that most therapists use more than one approach, and that research shows integrative treatments can be effective for…
Anxiety has long been linked to worse performance in evaluative social settings such as sex, sport, and stage. This paper asks three main questions: how each field understands anxiety and performance, what they can learn from one another, and how they could share useful ideas. The authors review existing models…
This paper argues that psychedelic-assisted therapy should include optional, clear discussion of metaphysical views during integration. It presents a "Metaphysics Matrix" schema and a new "Metaphysics Matrix Questionnaire (MMQ)" as tools to help integrate and to measure metaphysical aspects of psychedelic experiences. The authors say metaphysics (a branch of philosophy…
Researchers followed people who used psychedelics in real life and signed up online. They asked them about their personality and how connected they felt to others before the experience, two weeks after, and four weeks after. On average, people reported feeling less emotional instability, becoming more friendly and cooperative, and…
This study tested 60 healthy adults (30 women, 30 men) to see how two types of narcissism — vulnerable and grandiose — relate to emotion regulation. Researchers used questionnaires and a lab task that asked people to either feel naturally or use reappraisal (change how they think) while viewing sad…
This paper is a broad review that looks at how therapy that uses drugs together with psychotherapy should be done. The authors collect ideas from other studies about what therapists need to know, including ethical questions and the spiritual side of some treatments. They point out that the helpful effects…
This is a teaching manual (December 2020) about how to do mediation and moderation analyses with SPSS and the free PROCESS macro. It explains the basic models, the regression equations used to estimate effects, the assumptions needed for causal claims, and common tests for indirect effects (like Sobel and bootstrap).…
The study asked people which body images they see in their own mix of mass media (TV, magazines) and social media (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat) using a new picture scale for women (thinness) and men (muscularity). It found that Facebook and YouTube were linked to stronger perceptions of media body…
