Mental health has become one of the central themes of 2020 thanks to COVID-19 and the resulting societal shutdown. In fact, the psychological spillover from coronavirus is projected to evolve into an entirely separate pandemic, according to the Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association (JAPNA). Like the virus itself, the “second pandemic” is nothing to ignore. The United Nations, World Health Organization and other academic sources such as the Journal of the American Medical Association have also sounded the alarm about a potential mental health crisis coming down the pipeline.
The JAPNA study, however, calls for the implementation of “new mental health interventions” and “collaboration among health leaders” in order to prepare for mobilization when the masses are seeking psychological assistance. While psychedelic medicines were not explicitly cited in the study, these drugs offer an array of treatments that just so happen to address many of the mental health issues brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and paranoia. Specifically, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, which is on the brink of legalization in Oregon, may serve as one such model to assuage the psychological fallout from COVID-19.