Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy for treatment-resistant eating disorders.

With EpiphanyClinics Dr A. Ocana, MD, ADHD and Addictions Specialist

and Barbara Heiman, MA, LMFT, Psychotherapist

I recently found a good article summing up the main concepts that apply to the management of eating disorders with psychedelic assisted psychotherapy.

Reid Robison, MD: In eating disorders, you need to have some self-awareness inserted into the mix. People don't choose eating disorders. 

No one wakes up and says, 'I'd like to have anorexia.'  They are not choices, they're biologically influenced illnesses. And so we need interventions that aren't band aid approaches to treating symptoms, like numbing out anxiety. We need to get underneath the hood of these complex, multifaceted illnesses. And if there is an underlying anxiety disorder, we need to go for that root cause. 

If there's trauma contributing, we need to do some trauma healing. And these are (can be) serious illnesses that require intensive treatment.