Asian Psychedelia: Family, Governance, and Postcolonial Tensions in Psychedelic Treatments

Overall Abstract 

Psychedelic treatments are increasingly promoted as innovative responses to treatment-resistant distress. However, their implementation in Asia unfolds within distinct landscapes shaped by colonialism, drug prohibition, and moral governance. This symposium examines how these treatments are translated and reconfigured in Taiwan, mainland China, and Hong Kong.

Drawing on qualitative research, the symposium explores three dimensions of psychiatric innovation: (1) the geopolitics of psychedelic knowledge and neocolonial therapeutic reasoning; (2) the central role of families in clinical decision-making and care; and (3) the ethical challenges of implementing stigmatized substances within institutional healthcare.

Presenters highlight tensions between biomedical models and relational, culturally embedded understandings of healing. In Taiwan, psychedelic therapies intersect with discourses of ancestry and postcolonial identity. In mainland China, esketamine treatments reveal how families act as ethical agents, reshaping clinical authority. In Hong Kong, potential psilocybin therapy for end-of-life distress is constrained by illegality and family-centered decision-making, despite unmet clinical needs.

By foregrounding family involvement, governance, and postcolonial dynamics, this symposium contributes to psychiatric anthropology, implementation science, and the philosophy of psychiatry. It argues that the future of psychedelic therapies in Asia cannot be understood through neuroscience alone, but must be situated within relational care practices, cultural moral values, and geopolitical histories.