Theoretical Background and Rationale:

Psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) holds great promise for addressing the huge unmet needs faced by people living with neuropsychiatric conditions but best practices for ensuring participant well-being throughout PAT are yet to be developed. PsyPAN, a non-profit organisation dedicated to enhancing participant safety and well-being in psychedelic studies, has partnered with Beckley Psytech, a clinical-stage biotechnology company leading the development of psychedelic medicines, to understand the most effective means of supporting patients through a psychedelic treatment model. This transformative project has culminated in the creation of a groundbreaking whitepaper which is intended to be used as a playbook for all industry stakeholders, to be launched at ICPR.

Research Question and Hypothesis:

The central question this collaborative project sought to address was: How can the lived experiences of individuals in psychedelic clinical trials enhance participant safety, inform best practices, and scale research effectively?

Methods and Analysis:

PsyPAN and Beckley Psytech convened a Patient Council and conducted several workshops to extract participant’s valuable insights. They then undertook a thematic analysis of the insights and synthesised these into a whitepaper, focusing on enhancing participant safety, well-being and therapeutic outcomes in psychedelic research.

Main Findings:

The whitepaper offers a patient-centred framework for ensuring participant well-being throughout the psychedelic treatment process, emphasising the importance of trust, communication and psychedelically-informed support before, during and after treatment.

Conclusion:

The whitepaper, to be launched at ICPR, signifies a vital step in psychedelic research and formulates best practices to ensure safer and more effective psychedelic therapy.