Psychedelics and Wellness: What’s the Connection?

A conversation between Andrew Penn, MS, PMHNP and Saundra Jain, MA, PsyD, LPC

Many people know Drs. Saundra and Rakesh Jain from their work around wellness in psychiatry, not only at Psych Congress, but around the world. They have published a workbook and have a forthcoming text on the science behind wellness and the implementation of wellness-enhancing practices (called WILD 5 Wellness - Wellness Interventions for Life’s Demands) into clinical practice. 

What many people are surprised to learn is that their interests in wellness have intersected with my interests in psychedelic-assisted therapy. They’ve been collecting data about experiences and wellness from people who have used psychedelics. I sat down with Saundra Jain, MA, PsyD, LPC to better understand the connection. A transcript of our conversation is below.

Tell me about the survey you and Rakesh Jain, MD, MPH are conducting.

I’d be happy to, Andrew. Wellness is certainly a topic of interest for most of us and our patients. As many of your readers know, we have been conducting research in the area of wellness for many years. To date, we’ve completed 11 studies—all with positive findings. We are committed to continuing this research, but an interesting thing happened several years ago. Data coming from the world of psychedelics caught our attention and we began wondering about the intersection of psychedelics and wellness.

What got you interested in asking people about their psychedelic experiences? 

We are so convinced of the power of wellness as an augmentation strategy in mental health that we couldn’t stop wondering if wellness has a role to play in the world of psychedelics. We believed the best way to answer that question was to go straight to those in the psychedelic community and ask them about their experiences via an anonymous, online survey on psychedelic use and the impact on mental health and wellness. So, that’s exactly what we did. We’re grateful to those who have completed the survey, and to those who will, for guiding us and informing us about the interrelationship between psychedelics and wellness.

What are people telling you about the results of their experiences? 

There were many interesting findings from the pilot study. Let me tell you about a few that I think your readers will find of interest. 

•    Pre/post measures of anxiety and depression showed improvements of 56% and 54% respectively. 

•    Using a validated measure of wellness called The HERO Wellness Scale, which looks at self-reported levels of happiness, enthusiasm, resilience, and optimism, we found an overall improvement of 44% in happiness, 36% in enthusiasm, 27% in resilience, and 39% in optimism.

•    We queried feelings of gratitude, inner peace, connection to nature, sense of awe, and feelings of love, compassion, joy, and empathy. Of the 83 participants, 2% reported some degree of worsening, but the remainder reported improvements ranging from minimally improved to much improved.

•    98% believe psychedelics should be used to treat certain psychiatric disorders; 99% said they should be legalized for medical use. 

We hope these findings pique your readers’ interest. We were excited to see the improvements specific to depression and anxiety, but finding additional improvements related to wellness was a definite bonus. Based on our wellness research outside of psychedelics and our clinical work, we know that wellness is an effective nonpharmacological augmentation strategy. It only makes sense that an interrelationship between psychedelics and wellness would exist.

So, it sounds like the vast majority of the people surveyed expressed some benefit from their psychedelic experiences. Of course, all medicines have side effects and risks. Did you note any adverse effects from the use of psychedelics in your study?

It was very exciting to see that the benefits outweighed the side-effects/risks associated with their psychedelic experiences. As mentioned earlier, the results showed that 2% of 83 participants reported some degree of worsening, ranging from minimally worse to very much worse.

How can this help guide future psychedelic research? 

We were so intrigued with the findings from the pilot study that we decided to expand the survey and conduct an Institutional Review Board-approved study. We launched the current study in mid-2019 and have almost 600 completed surveys with a goal of 5000. We will use the findings to help educate others on the intersection of psychedelics and wellness. If our research colleagues receive US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the medical use of psychedelics, we hope to collaborate and study the power of wellness as a wraparound intervention to the psychedelic experience.

We are so optimistic about the power of wellness that we are designing a protocol to study the impact of implementing a 30-day wellness program within 2 weeks of a psychedelic experience. Since neuroplasticity is at a peak shortly after a psychedelic experience, we are curious as to the effects of integrating wellness-enhancing behaviors and positive psychology practices during that window of opportunity. We hope to launch this study in the second quarter of 2020.

Can readers participate in your survey? 

Absolutely! Participants must be at least 18 years old and have taken a psychedelic at least once in their lifetime. The study involves an anonymous online survey that takes about 8-10 minutes to complete. Your readers can access the survey at psychedelicsandwellness.com. Please feel free to email me at drjain@wild5wellness.com with any questions. 

Thanks, Andrew, for the opportunity to tell your readers about this study.

Saundra Jain, MA, PsyD, LPC is an Adjunct Clinical Affiliate, School of Nursing, at The University of Texas at Austin. She serves on the Psych Congress Steering Committee.

Andrew Penn, RN, MS, NP, CNS, APRN-BC was trained as an adult nurse practitioner and psychiatric clinical nurse specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. He is board certified as an adult nurse practitioner and psychiatric nurse practitioner by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. He has completed extensive training in Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy at the California Institute for Integral Studies and recently published a book chapter on this modality in The Casebook of Positive Psychiatry, published by American Psychiatric Association Press. Currently, he serves as an Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California-San Francisco School of Nursing, where he teaches psychopharmacology, and is an Attending Nurse Practitioner at the San Francisco Veterans Administration. He has expertise in psychopharmacological treatment for adult patients and specializes in the treatment of affective disorders and PTSD. As a steering committee member for Psych Congress, he has been invited to present internationally on improving medication adherence, cannabis pharmacology, psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, grief psychotherapy,  treatment-resistant depression, diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder, and the art and science of psychopharmacologic practice.