Psychedelic therapy as the reconstruction of meaning

Mounting evidence stemming from clinical trials suggest that psychedelics have the capacity to act on a wide range of mental health disorders. However, most explanations for this transdiagnostic potential are based on the ability for psychedelics to ‘reset’ the brain by removing its ‘filters’ – with these filters being a maladaptive sense of self encoded in the Default Mode Network. However, while these formulations - strongly rooted in Aldous Huxley’s perennial philosophy – explain a necessary part of the therapeutic process, they only account for half of the story. Crucially, recent evidence shows that processes of meaning reconstruction may be more important in psychedelic therapy than its immediate effects, with key implications for safety and efficacy. In this talk, I will present evidence from neuroscience research employing DMT and 5-MeO-DMT, supporting the view that psychedelic experiences, and their subsequent impact on mental health and wellbeing rely on a dynamic process involving the deconstruction and reconstruction of meaning.