A Future for Psychiatry: Psychedelic Therapy as a Synthesis of Evidence-based Psychiatry and Existential Psychotherapy

The fields of psychiatry and psychotherapy currently find themselves dominated by schools of thought that show an admirable scientific purity, but fail to acknowledge fundamental aspects of the human experience. Conversely, an examination of the history of these disciplines reveals alternative approaches that provide a philosophically deeper and more authentic analysis of human being, but lack the scientific rigor of the mainstream practices. The current thesis proposes a potential synthesis of these two directions in the form of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. It is argued that the nature of the psychedelic experience is such that the philosophical depth of the alternative approaches is unavoidably preserved while simultaneously allowing for a degree of scientific precision akin to that of the mainstream approaches. Ultimately, in order to construct truly effective mental health care, it is argued that the current exclusive domination of the fields of psychiatry and psychotherapy should be outgrown, and that professionals should receive training in a wide array of different conceptual and therapeutic approaches.