Pattern breaking: a complex systems approach to psychedelic medicine

Abstract

Recent research has demonstrated the potential of psychedelic therapy for mental health care. However, the psychological experience underlying its therapeutic effects remains poorly understood. This paper proposes a framework that suggests psychedelics act as destabilizers, both psychologically and neurophysiologically. Drawing on the ‘entropic brain’ hypothesis and the ‘RElaxed Beliefs Under pSychedelics’ model, this paper focuses on the richness of psychological experience. Through a complex systems theory perspective, we suggest that psychedelics destabilize fixed points or attractors, breaking reinforced patterns of thinking and behaving. Our approach explains how psychedelic-induced increases in brain entropy destabilize neurophysiological set points and lead to new conceptualizations of psychedelic psychotherapy. These insights have important implications for risk mitigation and treatment optimization in psychedelic medicine, both during the peak psychedelic experience and during the subacute period of potential recovery.

Psychotherapeutisches Setting und Integration bei psychedelikaassistierter Therapie

“…Andererseits kann Integration auch nötig sein, um unerwünschte Nebenwirkungen oder Folgen einer psychedelischen Erfahrung aufzulösen ("Schadensbegrenzung"). Die Behandlung mit Psychedelika stellt eine intensive psychotherapeutische Intervention dar, die über eine Destabilisierung psychologischer Dynamiken wirkt [13]. Da sie intensive oder als überwältigend erlebte Veränderungen mentaler Zustände auslösen kann, ist eine an psychotherapeutischen Prinzipien ausgerichtete Nachbearbeitung gerade bei als belastend erlebten Erfahrungen essenziell [14].…”

Exploring psychedelic-assisted therapy in the treatment of functional seizures: A review of underlying mechanisms and associated brain networks

“…It also provides a scheme to understand the inherently multifocal and distributed nature of the underlying pathophysiology. This approach has been proposed to explain similar clinical and functional neuroimaging discrepancies arising out of the mechanistic psychedelic literature ( Girn et al, 2023 ; Hipólito et al, 2023 )—discussed more below.…”

Universal Complexity Science and Theory of Everything: Challenges and Prospects

“…For example, Ochoa [84] points out that different systems can be modeled based on the exact mathematical framework that current systems science provides. Similarly, Hipólito et al [85] (p. 7) define complexity science as "Composed of an array of different techniques, which together aim to capture the unifying common features of the behavior of multi-system interactions". Also, in a recent topical article by Wong et al [86] (p. 1), which is already resonating beyond the scientific community, the authors propose a unifying evolutionary framework for the development of living and nonliving complex systems based on three remarkable features: (1) the existence of many components that can adopt a large number of different configurations; (2) the existence of processes that can drive these different configurations; and (3) the selection process that can choose these different configurations based on their function.…”