Assessment Task 2: Global Health Report Task Rationale The strategies used to tackle global health problems take many forms and have varying levels of success. These strategies may be developed...

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Unit Code
Introduction    1
Critical analysis    2
Conclusion    6
Reference    7
Introduction
Psychedelic substances have been utilised for a wide range of purposes, including leisure, medicine, and spirituality, throughout a wide range of cultures and time periods. Although many studies over the last decade on the benefits of psychedelics for treating mental health issues, their use is still stigmatised in today's culture and generally associated with risk or criminality (Tupper et al,2015). Charles Raison, the director of clinical and translational research at the Usonia Institute, claims that these medications have biological and behavioural characteristics that would make them exceptionally useful treatment agents for mood and anxiety disorders.
Raison suggests that psychedelics have therapeutic promise for certain forms of mental illness. A wide variety of psychedelics are available today; some common examples are LSD, psilocybin, and MDMA. These medications may soon be used in tandem with other forms of therapy to address mental health conditions (Perkins et al,2021). Although psychedelics have a negative image in the field of psychology, there is a contemporary movement to reevaluate their therapeutic potential. The use of psilocybin, more commonly known as "Magic Mushrooms," in psychotherapy has been decriminalised in Denver, Colorado, making it the first city in the United States to do so. The use of psychedelics for the treatment of mental health issues such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and addiction may one day become the norm, making it crucial to comprehend the positive effects and therapeutic potential of these hallucinogens (Elsey,2017).
Critical analysis
According to Dr Je
old Rosenbaum, head of Massachusetts General Hospital's recently established Institute for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics and former chief psychiatrist at MGH is that "psychedelics stimulate the
ain to change transiently in ways that seem to enable a reset to take place and permit adjustments in previously "stuck" ways of feeling and thinking about things (Wheeler & Dyer,2020). Psychedelics may help in a number of different ways: While the
ain is in its "default mode network," also known as its resting state, new connections are created in neural networks for a short time before the network reconnects itself. In other words, It's the same as restarting your computer (Wheeler & Dyer,2020). It is considered that by doing this, one may
eak free of ingrained cognitive habits. As a result, neuroplasticity, the formation of new connections between neurons, occurs. Last but not least, the psychedelic medicines themselves, also known as psychedelic-assisted therapy, may induce a temporary state in which patients can more effectively process memories, emotions, and prior trauma, allowing them to reemerge with a fresh perspective on them that is liberated and healing.
Even though studies into their possible therapeutic use started in the 1960s and 1970s, funding dried up when they were made illegal due to overuse causing damage. A number of international studies are now employing these drugs as adjuncts to psychotherapy, although this trend has only recently gained momentum (Sessa,2014). Since then, PTSD patients have been given MDMA in clinical trials, and psilocybin has been employed to treat various mental disorders, including depression, that have resisted therapy.
That question has a more and more emphatic affirmative response to the degree that research on medications and treatments that aren't yet licenced has been permitted. Psilocybin-assisted treatment was effective in delivering substantial, quick, and persistent antidepressant effects in individuals with severe depressive disorder, according to a randomised clinical trial published in JAMA Psychiatry in 2021 (Nayak & Johnson,2021). Another research published in the Journal of Medicine named The New England in 2021 found that individuals with intermediate to severe major depression who got two doses of psilocybin performed equally as well, if not better, after six weeks as those who received daily doses of the antidepressant medicine escitalopram.
"MDMA-assisted therapy is very effective in individuals who have severe PTSD, and therapy is safe and well-tolerated," according to a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study published in Nature in 2021 (Yaden et al,2021).
Many studies have shown that ketamine may be effective in treating patients with unresponsive depression. And it's now a viable alternative for certain people who've exhausted all avenues in seeking help for their depression (Siegel et al,2021).
There is also a growing body of research investigating the potential benefits of psychedelic drugs in palliative and end-of-life care settings. These pharmaceuticals may alleviate patients' anxiety about death and facilitate a more peaceful, meditative passing.
Due to their...