Description
In addition to questions on clinical efficacy and safety of psychedelic therapy, ethical concerns have been raised both in clinical trials and (limited) pre-approval access programs. Ethical aspects will be crucial in the further research and implementation of psychedelic therapy.
The objective of this project is to explore ethical considerations within psychedelic therapy regulation. The project will compare ethical governance in psychedelic therapy with other medical treatments. It will analyse unique ethical dimensions of psychedelic therapy, translating insights into practical guidelines as well as determine if and how psychedelic ethics can improve broader medical practices.
The project uses mixed normative-analytic and qualitative methods to address ethical questions. The doctoral candidate will analyze ethical reasoning in policies, academic literature and public discourse on transformative interventions, including psychedelic therapy. Through stakeholder interviews and focus groups the doctoral candidate will collect and synthesise stakeholder perspectives on ethical psychedelic therapy regulation, identifying areas of consensus and divergence.
The doctoral candidate will develop and use qualitative measures to conduct and analyse individual and focus group interviews with stakeholders and analyse existing qualitative datasets to explore ethical questions.
Location
Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences,
Campus Charité Mitte (Berlin, Germany)
Supervisors
Dr. Dimitris Repantis is a Consultant Psychiatrist and Lead of the Psychedelic Substances Research Group at the Charité. He has been actively involved as principal investigator and therapist in trials with psychedelic substances such as psilocybin, MDMA, 5-MeO-DMT and LSD and is principal investigator in several interdisciplinary projects on psychedelics (PsychedELSI; PsyTrans).
Dr. Christopher Poppe is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist with a background in bioethics and special interest in palliative care. He is a postdoc in the research project PsychedELSI and actively involved in clinical trials with psychedelic substances.
PD Dr. Dr. Dipl.-Psych. Eva Friedel is the Deputy Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences and Head of the Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic as well as Clinical Fellow of the Berlin Institute of Health.
Secondments
Institute: Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, USA)
Supervisors: Ass. prof. David Yaden
Purpose: The doctoral candidate will spend time at JHU to gain additional hands-on experience in psychedelic therapy research, including clinical trial Conduct, and to interact with the Hopkins-Oxford Psychedelics Ethics (HOPE) Network of researchers.
Institute: University of Groningen (Groningen, The Netherlands)
Supervisors: Prof. Brigit Toebes
Purpose: The doctoral candidate will spend time at the Groningen Centre for Health Law to learn more about the legal landscape around responsible psychedelic use and explore legal, ethical and human rights dimensions of access to psychedelics.
General eligibility criteria
- The position is open to candidates of any nationality (European and non-European) who fulfil the requirements set for the Doctoral Candidates (DCs) funded by Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions.
- Applicants must hold a Master’s degree in a relevant academic field, allowing enrolment in a PhD program at the hiring beneficiary.
- Applicants must not previously have been awarded a PhD degree.
- Applicants must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country in which the DC project for which they are applying is based for more than 12 months in the 3 years prior to recruitment. This excludes short stays such as holidays, compulsory national service or time spent as part of a procedure for obtaining refugee status under the Geneva Convention.
- Applicants must be willing to undertake secondments at another institute of the network during the DC project, including at institutes in other countries.
- Applicants must be able to demonstrate their ability to understand and express themselves in both written and spoken English at a level that is sufficiently high to fully benefit from the network training (C1/C2 level).
- Applicants are expected to be motivated to work in the field of psychedelic therapy.
- Applicants are expected to work independently, well-structured and collaboratively in a multidisciplinary consortium.
Additional eligibility criteria
A Master’s degree in neuroscience, bioethics, anthropology, philosophy, implementation research or another related field.
Experience with qualitative interviews is very helpful but not required.
Interest in psychedelic therapy and mental health.
Strong communication skills for interviews and teamwork.
German is helpful but not required.