Healing Words: Effects of Psychoeducation on Likelihood to Seek and Refer Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy Among BIPOC Individuals

ABSTRACT

Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (PAP) is gaining renewed interest as a treatment for various mental disorders. However, there has been limited Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) representation in PAP clinical trials, signaling the need for culturally consonant communication about the efficacy and safety of PAP. We randomly assigned 321 BIPOC and 301 non-Hispanic White participants to four different modes of psychoeducation (didactic, visual, narrative, hope-based) and tested effects on likelihood of seeking and referring others to PAP using ANCOVAS. The influences of different psychoeducation components on these likelihoods were also tested using hierarchical regression modeling. Regardless of psychoeducation mode, BIPOC participants were more likely to seek PAP than non-Hispanic White participants after psychoeducation. Further, information on physical safety and success rate of PAP uniquely predicted BIPOC participants’ likelihood of seeking and referring others to PAP after psychoeducation. Our findings suggest that once provided psychoeducation, BIPOC participants are receptive to seeking or referring others to PAP. BIPOC participants also appear to prioritize physical safety and rate of success of PAP in these decisions. Stigma against PAP is likely not the primary barrier to recruitment of BIPOC individuals into PAP trials. Instead, researchers should conduct more psychoeducational outreach to diversify future trials.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy
• psychoeducation
• treatment-seeking
• diversity
• BIPOC
• recruitment

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the members of the Laboratory of Culture and Mental Health Disparities, who have helped and supported this study with participant recruitment and piloting the online survey.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Contributors

RF and THWC are co-first authors of this manuscript. RF and THWC co-conceptualized the research ideas, study design, and methodology. RF conducted the literature search, collated measures, spearheaded efforts for ethics review, directed data collection, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. THWC analyzed the data and wrote most of the final version of the manuscript. All authors contributed to conceptualizing aspects of the project and the final version of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This research was partially funded by the Canada Research Chairs Program, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR): grant number 950-232127 (PI: MTW).