Abstract
Mindfulness-based interventions and psychedelic-assisted therapy have been experimentally utilised in recent years as alternative treatments for various psychopathologies with moderate to great success. Both have also demonstrated significant post-acute and long-term decreases in clinical symptoms and enhancements in well-being in healthy participants. These two therapeutic interventions share various postulated salutogenic mechanisms, such as the ability to alter present-moment awareness and anti-depressive action, via corresponding neuromodulatory effects. Recent preliminary evidence has also demonstrated that psychedelic administration can enhance mindfulness capacities which has already been demonstrated robustly as a result of mindfulness-based interventions. These shared mechanisms between mindfulness-based interventions and psychedelic therapy have led to scientists theorising, and recently demonstrating, synergistic effects when both are used in combination, in the form of potentiated therapeutic benefit. These synergistic results hold great promise but require replication in bigger sample groups and better controlled methodologies, to fully delineate the effect of set and setting, before they can be extended onto clinical populations.
Highlights
Mindfulness Meditation and Mindfulness-Based InterventionsMeditation refers to a form of cognitive training involving the regulation of attention by focusing it on a specific goal, which varies depending on the type of meditation
Smigielski et al demonstrated that psilocybin administration was able to enhance meditation depth [measured by the Meditation Depth Questionnaire (MEDEQ), [146]] post-acutely, and trait mindfulness [as measured by the Toronto Mindfulness Scale (TMS); [149]] longterm, even in their experienced meditator sample, who had over 5,000 h of meditation experience [61]
Preliminary findings from combined methodologies suggest that psychedelic-assisted therapy and mindfulness-based interventions have complementary effects on well-being and could potentially act as complementary adjuncts to enhance the salutogenic effects of either intervention
Summary
Mindfulness Meditation and Mindfulness-Based InterventionsMeditation refers to a form of cognitive training involving the regulation of attention by focusing it on a specific goal, which varies depending on the type of meditation. The administration of psilocybin within a context of mindfulness-training significantly enhanced engagement with formal spiritual practises, mindfulness meditation depth and trait mindfulness [60, 61]. These results (summarised in Table 2) suggest that psychedelics could be utilised as a useful adjunct to aid mindfulness meditation training in novices, and to deepen the meditation practise of long-term practitioners [150].
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