The Psychedelic Revolution: Polished Brass or Silver Bullet? (NEW RELEASE!)

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Jacob M. Appel (MD JD MPH HEC-C DFAPA) is currently Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, where he is Director of Ethics Education in Psychiatry, Assistant Director of the Academy for Medicine and the Humanities, and Medical Director of the Mental Health Clinic at the East Harlem Health Outreach Program. He also teaches graduate students at Albany Medical College’s Alden March Bioethics Institute. Prior to joining the faculty at Mount Sinai, Jacob taught for many years at Brown University and at Yeshiva College, where he was the writer-in-residence. Jacob is the author of five literary novels, ten short story collections, an essay collection, a cozy mystery, a thriller, a volume of poems and a compendium of dilemmas in medical ethics. He is Vice President of the National Book Critics Circle, co-chair of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry’s Committee on Psychiatry & Law, and a Councilor of the New York County Psychiatric Society.

Overview

For many older Americans, psychedelics remain inextricably linked to the counterculture of the 1960s: Haight-Ashbury, Timothy Leary, Woodstock. Yet the history of these substances as therapeutic agents dates back millennia and is now being “rediscovered” by western medicine at a rapid pace. Compounds like MDMA and psilocybin are reported to offer novel approaches to the treatment of a range of medical and psychiatric disorders; they also offer promise in breaking the bonds of addiction. This talk examines the latest research in the use of psychedelics in medicine, as well as the complex legal and ethical issues that arise as the evidence for the efficacy of these interventions improves.

 

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