Broadening Your Mind to Include Others: The relationship between serotonergic psychedelic experiences and maladaptive na
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ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION
Broadening Your Mind to Include Others: The relationship between serotonergic psychedelic experiences and maladaptive narcissism Valerie van Mulukom 1
&
Ruairi E. Patterson 1 & Michiel van Elk 2
Received: 5 February 2020 / Accepted: 20 May 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Rationale Recent research has shown that classical serotonergic psychedelic (CSP) drugs may be used to ameliorate certain health issues and disorders. Here we hypothesised that CSP experiences, through their ability to induce awe and ego-dissolution, may result in a reduction of maladaptive narcissistic personality traits, such as a strong sense of entitlement and lack of empathy. Objectives Our objective was to investigate whether high levels of awe and ego dissolution during recent CSP experiences are associated with currently lower levels of maladaptive narcissism. Methods In this pre-registered high-powered (N = 414) study, we used an online retrospective survey asking participants to describe their ‘most awe-inspiring, impressive, significant, or emotionally intense experience’, as well as several validated scales to test our hypothesis. Results A statistically significant mediation model indicated that recent CSP-induced experiences were associated with currently increased feelings of connectedness and affective empathetic drive, which in turn were associated with decreased exploitativeentitled narcissism. This relationship held even when taking into account sensation-seeking personality features. We found no evidence for feelings of ego dissolution to have the same effect. Conclusions Feelings of awe, but not ego dissolution, during recent CSP experiences were associated with increased feelings of connectedness and empathy, which in turn were associated with decreased levels of maladaptive narcissism personality features. This suggests that CSPs hold therapeutic potential for disorders involving connectedness and empathy, such as the treatment of pathological narcissism, and that the induction of connectedness through awe appears to be the driving force behind this potential. Keywords Psychedelics . Narcissism . Awe . Empathy . Ego . Connectedness . Serotonergic . Personality
Introduction In recent years, there has been a steady increase in research suggesting that certain drugs typically classified as recreational drugs may be used effectively in mental health research and Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-020-05568-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Valerie van Mulukom [email protected] 1
Brain, Belief, and Behaviour Lab, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Innovation Village IV5, Cheetah Road, Coventry CV1 2TL, UK
2
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 129B, 1018, XA Amsterdam, The Netherlands
care, in particular for depression (Carhart-Harris et al. 2018a; Singh et al. 2016), post-traumatic stres
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