ReviewTherapeutic advances in psychopharmacology2023
History repeating: guidelines to address common problems in psychedelic science.
Review in Therapeutic advances in psychopharmacology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 45 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pharmacological Management of Anxiety in End-of-Life Care: A Systematic Review of Benzodiazepines, Opioids, and Psilocybin.Human psychopharmacology · 2026Pooled it
- Incremental efficacy systematic review and meta-analysis of psilocybin-for-depression RCTs.Psychopharmacology · 2025Pooled it
- Acute effects of psilocybin on attention and executive functioning in healthy volunteers: a systematic review and multilevel meta-analysis.Psychopharmacology · 2025Pooled it
- Safety and efficacy of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted psychotherapy in post-traumatic stress disorder: An overview of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Meditating on psychedelics. A randomized placebo-controlled study of DMT and harmine in a mindfulness retreat.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2024Trial
- A contemporary exploration of motivations and practices of psychedelic use among emerging adult cannabis users in the United States: A qualitative analysis.Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · 2026Article
- Review
- Novel approaches in depression treatment: from rapid-acting antidepressants to personalized interventions.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- Landscape analysis of pre-registered clinical trials involving classical psychedelics.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2026Review
- Psilocybin Treatment as an Adjunct to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Eating Disorders: Therapeutic Rationale & Considerations for Protocol Development.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Design, Synthesis, and Pharmacokinetic Profiling of Fluorinated ReversibleJournal of medicinal chemistry · 2026Article
- Innovations to improve outcomes and uptake of psychotherapies for mental disorders: a state-of-the-art review.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2026Article
- Practitioner perspectives on extended difficulties and optimal support strategies following psychedelic experiences: a qualitative analysis.Harm reduction journal · 2025Article
- Exploring practitioners' perceptions of health behavior changes associated with psychedelic experiences.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- A scoping review of the effects of serotonergic psychedelics on attitudes towards death.Psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- What are set and setting: Reducing vagueness to improve research and clinical practice.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Evolving Psychotherapeutic Approaches for PTSD: Beyond the Fear-Based Model.Psychiatry and clinical psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Psychedelic use in individuals living with eating disorders or disordered eating: findings from the international MED-FED survey.Journal of eating disorders · 2025Article
- An international Delphi consensus for reporting of setting in psychedelic clinical trials.Nature medicine · 2025Article
- Classic Psychedelics in Pain Modulation: Mechanisms, Clinical Evidence, and Future Perspectives.ACS chemical neuroscience · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Research in the last decade has expressed considerable optimism about the clinical potential of psychedelics for the treatment of mental disorders. This optimism is reflected in an increase in research papers, investments by pharmaceutical companies, patents, media coverage, as well as political and legislative changes. However, psychedelic science is facing serious challenges that threaten the validity of core findings and raise doubt regarding clinical efficacy and safety. In this paper, we introduce the 10 most pressing challenges, grouped into easy, moderate, and hard problems. We show how these problems threaten internal validity (treatment effects are due to factors unrelated to the treatment), external validity (lack of generalizability), construct validity (unclear working mechanism), or statistical conclusion validity (conclusions do not follow from the data and methods). These problems tend to co-occur in psychedelic studies, limiting conclusions that can be drawn about the safety and efficacy of psychedelic therapy. We provide a roadmap for tackling these challenges and share a checklist that researchers, journalists, funders, policymakers, and other stakeholders can use to assess the quality of psychedelic science. Addressing today's problems is necessary to find out whether the optimism regarding the therapeutic potential of psychedelics has been warranted and to avoid history repeating itself.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.