The COVID-19 pandemic has led many counselors and therapists to transition from in-person therapy to teletherapy services. Doctoral trainees in their first year of training, faculty, and staff at the Psychological Services Center (PSC), a training clinic at a large public university, successfully completed a rapid transition to teletherapy in March 2020. This brief report will provide insight into steps taken by the PSC to shift to remote training and practice while maintaining its educational and community mandates, prioritizing continuity of care and training during the onset of a global pandemic. We provide the trainee perspective on technological needs, remote supervision, and changes to clinical practice during the transition. Special considerations around self-disclosure and child treatment will be discussed. This brief report serves as an example of the multitude of considerations faculty, staff, and trainees may be faced with as therapeutic services continue remotely throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Background: Despite tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)’s reputation for creating dramatic effects at high doses, empirical work rarely addresses cannabis’s impact on subjective responses common to the tryptamine psychedelics. We focused on these effects because they have preceded and covaried with the therapeutic impact of psilocybin in previous work. Aims: The current study examined if self-reported responses to cannabis products might parallel those found in clinical trials of psilocybin administration. We also investigated if measures of demographics and cannabis use might correlate with these responses. Methods: Participants reported the subjective effect of their highest THC experience using 27 items that assess oceanic boundlessness, a correlate of mystical experiences. They also answered infrequency items and questions on demographics and cannabis consumption. Results: In an effort to address concerns about replication, we divided respondents who passed infrequency items into two random samples. Self-reported “breakthrough” experiences were significantly greater than zero but significantly lower than those reported in randomized clinical trials of psilocybin (17–19% vs. 59%). Total scores covaried with perceived dosages of THC, but only in one sample. Heavier users of cannabis reported lower scores. Conclusions: Self-report data suggest that high doses of cannabis can create subjective effects comparable to those identified in trials of psilocybin that precede relief from cancer-related distress, treatment-resistant depression, alcohol problems, and cigarette dependence. Given the disparate mechanisms of action, comparing THC-induced to psilocybin-induced effects might improve our understanding of the mechanisms underlying subjective experiences. This work might also support the development of a cannabis-assisted psychotherapy comparable to psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy.

Long-standing challenges in quantifying cannabis use make assessment difficult, potentially complicating attempts to minimize harm. Our study investigated how accurately undergraduates who use substances estimate amounts of alcohol through a behavioral pouring task. We also aimed to validate a free pack assessment in which participants similarly estimated amounts of cannabis. We further examined how estimations related to consequences and protective behavioral strategies (PBS). Methods: Participants completed a free pour task and a modified free "pack" task to measure out and estimate quantities of alcohol and cannabis, and self-reported use, problems, PBS, and social context (N = 264; M age = 19.2, 67.10% Female, 46.20% White). Results: Both tasks indicated high rates of misestimating amounts. Over 80% of the sample misestimated alcohol and cannabis amounts by more than 10%. Students typically underestimated the actual amount of alcohol that they poured, but the trend was opposite for cannabis. Discrepancies in packing joints decreased as quantity-specific cannabis PBS increased, but increased with more frequent cannabis use. Both alcohol and cannabis PBS decreased their respective consumption and negative consequences. Conclusions: A considerable proportion of young adults inaccurately estimate quantities, which is related to negative outcomes. Discrepancies are associated with problems, and interventions may benefit from targeting improvements in accuracy to prevent future harms and enhance protective strategies for specific substance use methods. Public Health Significance StatementThis study highlights the high prevalence of inaccurately estimating quantities of alcohol and cannabis among young adult substance users. The study also validates a modified "free pack" protocol for assessing cannabis quantity in this sample.

Objective:The Protective Behavioral Strategies for Marijuana Scale (PBSM), a 17-item scale targeting strategies for mitigating the negative consequences of cannabis use, highlights a range of behaviors that can reduce harm beyond straightforward decreases in quantity or frequency. The 17-item scale's factor structure remains under-examined but could reveal meaningful distinctions among strategies. This study aimed to confirm the factor structure of the short form of the PBSM.Methods: This study recruited cannabis-using undergraduates (N = 454, M age = 19.6, 68.8% female, 39% White), who reported using cannabis approximately 2.3 days per week with mild cannabis-related consequences (CAPQ; M = 9.74). Results:A confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated poor fit for the one-factor model of the PBSM, prompting an exploratory factor analysis. Analyses revealed two internally reliable factors: a "Quantity" factor, strategies specific to mitigating overuse and limiting amounts consumed and an "Context" factor loosely related to troubles with others. This two-factor model accounted for over half of the total variance; invariance testing indicated reduced fit as models became more restrictive. Though each of the factors covaried negatively with both days of use and problems, Context had a stronger relation to both variables compared to Quantity. Only Context predicted fewer cannabis problems and use.