Changing Attitudes to Psychedelics: Empathy Induction to Enhance Community Support

This preprint paper, to be published in the Sage journal, investigated options for changing attitudes to psychedelics. Specifically, the authors wondered how to best gain community approval of psychedelic treatments given the stigma surrounding these compounds (and mental illness in general).

The authors reported that 'empathy manipulation' may create the conditions required to encourage the general community to accept enhanced therapy for patients with mental illness. This may further enhance endorsement of the procedures by medical practitioners.

ABSTRACT

Psychotherapy augmented by psychoactive drugs for the treatment of mental illness has received recent empirical support. The use of such drugs is still resisted by many in the medical community, however, and the stigma of previous controversies surrounding the drugs, further enhanced by the stigma of mental illness, hinders community acceptance with failure to influence the medical community. We report an experiment to change community attitudes to endorse the benefits of such practice. Participants were given information about a client with post-traumatic stress disorder, with accompanying stigma of mental illness, or a physical condition with comorbid psychological symptoms, but without stigma, namely Parkinson’s disease. Participants received information about the diagnosis and the value of psychoactive drugs in the enhancement of therapy or this information with an empathy manipulation. Analysis revealed higher empathy for the PTSD than for the Parkinson’s patient. This was further enhanced by the empathy manipulation. While there was higher agreement that PTSD clients were responsible for their own condition, there was a greater willingness to help, further increased by empathy. Such conditions may be considered to encourage the general community to accept enhanced therapy for patients with mental illness which may further enhance endorsement of the procedures by medical practitioners.

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Please note, preprints are early versions of research articles that have not been peer reviewed. They should not be regarded as conclusive and should not be reported in news media as established information.