Towards psychedelic apprenticeship: Developing a gentle touch for the mediation and validation of psychedelic-induced insights and revelations

A striking feature of psychedelics is their ability to increase attribution of truth and meaningfulness to specific contents and ideas experienced, which may persist long after psychedelic effects have subsided. We propose that processes underlying conferral of meaning and truth in psychedelic experiences may act as a double-edged sword: while these may drive important therapeutic benefits, they also raise important considerations regarding the validation and mediation of knowledge gained during these experiences. Specifically, the ability of psychedelics to induce noetic feelings of revelation may enhance the significance and attribution of reality of specific beliefs, worldviews, and apparent memories which might exacerbate the risk of iatrogenic complications that other psychotherapeutic approaches have historically faced, such as false memory syndrome. These considerations are timely, as the use of psychedelics is becoming increasingly mainstream, in an environment marked by the emergence of strong commercial interest for psychedelic therapy. We elaborate on these ethical challenges via three examples illustrating issues of validation and mediation in therapeutic, neo-shamanic and research contexts involving psychedelic use. Finally, we propose a pragmatic framework to attend to these challenges based on an ethical approach which considers the embeddedness of psychedelic experiences within larger historical and cultural contexts, their intersubjective character and the use of practices which we conceptualise here as forms of psychedelic apprenticeship. This notion of apprenticeship goes beyond current approaches of preparation and integration by stressing the central importance of validation practices based on empathic resonance by an experienced therapist or guide.

Theatrical manipulation and seductive sentimentality: constructions of empathy in Swedish online far-right discourse about EU-migrants

Digital technologies such as online forums afford opportunities for users to circumvent and challenge feeling rules. The online far-right uses such opportunities to challenge feeling rules regarding racialised minority groups, refugees and immigrants, including rules about empathy for such groups. However, while the disruptive features of online far-right practice are widely acknowledged, less has been written about how participants in online far-right forums actually make sense of emotional experiences, including empathy in relation to migrants. This article analyses a Swedish far-right-dominated online discussion thread about non-Swedish EU citizens who ask for money, a group referred to in Sweden as ‘EU-migrants’. From an affective-discursive practice perspective, and focusing on metaphorically constructed interpretative repertoires, the article analyses how participants in the thread make sense of empathy as an actual or possible emotional response to these migrants, as well as how the participants position themselves as subjects in relation to such experiences and various actors involved. The results indicate that the participants are formulating a dual affective-discursive position. First, they present themselves as especially capable of empathic resonance and mirroring, but as righteously angered by EU-migrants’ putative attempts to manipulate this empathic capacity. Second, they disidentify with ‘Swedes’ by presenting themselves as capable of avoiding the seductive and sentimental ‘kindness narcomania’ supposedly deeply rooted in Swedish society, and thereby present themselves as a (counter-)empathic vanguard community in relation to this society. The implications of such affective-discursive practices for far-right online and offline action are discussed.

A Neural Model of Empathic States in Attachment-Based Psychotherapy

We build on a neuroanatomical model of how empathic states can motivate caregiving behavior, via empathy circuit-driven activation of regions in the hypothalamus and amygdala, which in turn stimulate a mesolimbic–ventral pallidum pathway, by integrating findings related to the perception of pain in self and others. On this basis, we propose a network to capture states of personal distress and (weak and strong forms of) empathic concern, which are particularly relevant for psychotherapists conducting attachment-based interventions. This model is then extended for the case of self-attachment therapy, in which conceptualized components of the self serve as both the source of and target for empathic resonance. In particular, we consider how states of empathic concern involving an other that is perceived as being closely related to the self might enhance the motivation for self-directed bonding (which in turn is proposed to lead the individual toward more compassionate states) in terms of medial prefrontal cortex–mediated activation of these caregiving pathways. We simulate our model computationally and discuss the interplay between the bonding and empathy protocols of the therapy.

Are Empathic Abilities Impaired in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder?

Trauma survivors with PTSD show social interaction and relationship impairments. It is hypothesized that traumatic experiences lead to known PTSD symptoms, empathic ability impairment, and difficulties in sharing affective, emotional, or cognitive states. A PTSD group ( N = 16) and a nontraumatized Control group ( N = 16) were compared on empathic abilities, namely the Empathic Resonance Test, Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, and Faux Pas Test. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index as a self-report measure of empathy and measures of nonsocial cognitive functions, namely the Verbal Fluency Test, the Five-Point Test, and the Stroop Test, were also administered. The PTSD group showed lower empathic resonance. No clear indications of other impairments in social cognitive functions were found. The PTSD group had significantly higher personal distress. Empathic resonance impairments did not correlate with subjective severity of PTSD symptomatology. This article discusses whether impaired empathic resonance in PTSD trauma survivors is a consequence of trauma itself or a protective coping strategy.

The Blame Game: The Effect of Responsibility and Social Stigma on Empathy for Pain

This investigation combined behavioral and functional neuroimaging measures to explore whether perception of pain is modulated by the target's stigmatized status and whether the target bore responsibility for that stigma. During fMRI scanning, participants were exposed to a series of short video clips featuring age-matched individuals experiencing pain who were (a) similar to the participant (healthy), (b) stigmatized but not responsible for their stigmatized condition (infected with AIDS as a result of an infected blood transfusion), or (c) stigmatized and responsible for their stigmatized condition (infected with AIDS as a result of intravenous drug use). Explicit pain and empathy ratings for the targets were obtained outside of the MRI environment, along with a variety of implicit and explicit measures of AIDS bias. Results showed that participants were significantly more sensitive to the pain of AIDS transfusion targets as compared with healthy and AIDS drug targets, as evidenced by significantly higher pain and empathy ratings during video evaluation and significantly greater hemodynamic activity in areas associated with pain processing (i.e., right anterior insula, anterior midcingulate cortex, periaqueductal gray). In contrast, significantly less activity was observed in the anterior midcingulate cortex for AIDS drug targets as compared with healthy controls. Further, behavioral differences between healthy and AIDS drug targets were moderated by the extent to which participants blamed AIDS drug individuals for their condition. Controlling for both explicit and implicit AIDS bias, the more participants blamed these targets, the less pain they attributed to them as compared with healthy controls. The present study reveals that empathic resonance is moderated early in information processing by a priori attitudes toward the target group.