Speaker Bio
Renske Blom is a psychiatrist at GGZ Centraal/UMC Utrecht. She is involved in the RCT: “the effect of psilocybin on treatment resistant depression”. She worked as the Sub-I in the trial for a year and is currently participating as a chaperone, guiding participants under the influence of psilocybin. She is most interested in the therapeutic effect of psychedelics. During her medicine-study, she studied the effect of MDMA on hyponatremia and was involved in the peer-education program (Unity), educating drug users about the effects of illicit drugs at dance-parties and festivals. She is currently still involved as a physician, advising drug users about the do’s and don’t of (illicit) drug use in combination with other drugs, medication or psychiatric disease.
ICPR 2024 Abstract
How to deal with the unavailability of legal psychedelic assisted therapy in Europe.
The ‘Psychedelics in Psychiatry Platform’ of the Dutch Psychiatric Association (‘Nederlandse Vereniging voor Psychiatrie, NVvP’) was founded in 2023, to provide a forum for discussion and information within Dutch psychiatry. With this panel discussion the Platform is introduced to the ICPR and contributes with a debate regarding the following.
Currently, the FDA is reviewing the New Drug Application for 'MDMA-assisted psychotherapy', with a potential approval in the US by 2024. In Australia, certified psychiatrists can prescribe MDMA and psilocybin under stringent conditions. However, MDMA therapy may only be registered in Europe years after the US. Psilocybin treatment still requires phase III studies before any application for registration will be filed. This disparity may result in large discrepancies between public expectations, amplified by media, and actual legal accessibility of these treatments. The resulting uncertainty can confuse and frustrate patients that may seek treatment outside regular mental healthcare. Healthcare providers may increasingly face dilemmas, as, for example, psilocybin truffles are legally obtainable in the Netherlands.
This interdisciplinary panel aims to discuss how European psychiatrists and other mental health care workers can approach the absence of formal prescription opportunities in the context of the sometimes over-idealized therapeutic potential of psychedelics, by addressing questions as: What attitude to adopt towards patients? How to deal with a request to facilitate a psychedelic experience for a patient? What care and advice to provide to patients seeking treatment outside mental health care? The panel will explore various potentially useful answers to these issues.