Join this FREE, 75-minute online webinar to gain access to insights and learn about groundbreaking treatments to chronic mental health conditions.
Renewed interest in the therapeutic effects of psychedelics such as psilocybin has driven a rich array of academic research over the past two decades. In 2016 researchers at New York University (NYU) and John Hopkins University co-published two landmark studies reporting on the effects of a single dose of psilocybin-assisted therapy for the treatment of anxiety and depression associated with a cancer diagnosis. In the NYU study, Agin-Liebes et al (2020) found that at the 4.5 year follow-up 60–80% of participants continued to meet criteria for clinically significant antidepressant or anxiolytic responses. Participants overwhelmingly (71–100%) attributed positive life changes to the psilocybin-assisted therapy experience and rated it among the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their lives. These findings suggest that psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy can occasion spiritually salient experiences and holds promise in promoting long-term relief from cancer-related existential and psychiatric distress.
Dr. Gabby Agin-Liebes is a clinical psychologist and NIH-funded researcher at UC San Francisco. She was the lead investigator of the long-term follow-up study at NYU, which garnered media attention in several news outlets including Newsweek and CNN. In this presentation she will discuss:
- The unique existential challenges associated with a cancer diagnosis
- The study methodologies and findings of the primary (Ross et al., 2016) and long-term follow-up (Agin-Liebes et al., 2020) trials
- Clinical implications of these study findings
- The role of spiritually salient or mystical-type experiences in promoting relief from existential distress in cancer patients
- Narrative/qualitative reports from participant interviews in the trial
- Future directions of the research
WEBINAR SESSION:
Date: Wednesday 28 April 2021
Time: 11:55am for 12:00pm start – 1:15pm (incl Q&A) (AEST)
The presentation WILL BEGIN AT 12:00pm.
Location: Online. A link will be emailed to you with the viewing details once you have registered.
Following the presentation, there will be a Q & A panel with Dr Gabby Agin-Liebes and Tania de Jong AM. This will be an opportunity to engage in a discussion about psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies for mental illness broadly, and what Mind Medicine Australia and other local organisations are doing here in Australia.
Support these events:
Whilst our webinars are free of charge, we strongly encourage you to make a donation and support our important mission of making these therapies available through our medical system. This can be done at the time of reserving your ticket. Please share these events with your networks.
More about medicinal psychedelic treatments:
Psychedelic-assisted treatments offer enormous potential in providing a meaningful alternative to current treatments for mental illness. PTSD is a debilitating condition that affects tens of millions of people worldwide, with many more trauma victims diagnosed with comorbid conditions such as depression, anxiety and eating disorders. In recent clinical trials, MDMA has been shown to produce reliable clinical improvements, restoring patient safety and self-agency even for individuals who have suffered with PTSD for many years, and for whom many treatments have failed.
The wave of clinical psychedelic research and regulatory support is rapidly building, with experts forecasting the availability of psychedelic-assisted treatments in the US and EU within the next 2 to 5 years, subject to positive clinical outcomes in large trials that are currently underway.
The Presenters
Dr Gabby Agin-Liebes (USA)
PH.D
Gabby Agin-Liebes, PhD is a clinical psychologist with 10 years of experience working as a therapist and investigator on academic trials with psilocybin-assisted therapy at New York University, Yale and UC San Francisco (UCSF). Her research has applied quantitative and qualitative methodologies within psilocybin-assisted and mindful self-compassion-based interventions to treat substance use and trauma-based disorders. She is currently a National Institutes of Health-funded research fellow at UCSF studying novel interventions for treating opioid addiction and chronic pain that target dysregulated emotion regulation and attentional bias processes. She is the lead author on a paper published earlier this year, and featured in several news outlets, which found that psilocybin-therapy led to sustained clinical remission from depression and anxiety in individuals with cancer up to 4.5 years later.
Tania de Jong AM
LL.B (Hons), GradDipMus
Co-founder Mind Medicine Australia, Founder Creative Universe, Creativity Australia, The Song Room & Creative Innovation Global
Tania de Jong AM is the co-Founder and Executive Director of Mind Medicine Australia. She regularly presents on psychedelic-assisted therapies, mental health and wellbeing at major conferences and events around the world and to Governments, regulators, clinicians, philanthropists and the general public.
Tania is one of Australia’s most successful female entrepreneurs and innovators developing 6 businesses and 4 charities including Creative Universe, Creativity Australia and With One Voice, Umbrella Foundation, Creative Innovation Global, Pot-Pourri and The Song Room.
Tania was named in the 100 Women of Influence, the 100 Australian Most Influential Entrepreneurs and named as one of the 100 most influential people in psychedelics globally in 2021. Tania’s TED Talk has sparked international interest. Tania has garnered an international reputation as a performer, speaker, entrepreneur and a passionate leader for social change. Her mission is to change the world, one voice at a time!