Are the Ethical Challenges of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Exceptional?
A PROZ lecture with PD Dr. Dr. Daniel Villiger, University of Zurich.
Psychedelic-assisted therapy is often portrayed as exceptional because of psychedelics’ unusual features. This talk asks whether those features justify exceptional normative treatment and examines four prominent areas of debate: informed consent, therapists’ personal psychedelic experience, clinical trial design, and heightened patient vulnerability. I argue that while three of these presumed cases of psychedelic exceptionalism are either not exceptional after all or not sufficiently justified, enhanced vulnerability during psychedelic sessions may require genuinely distinctive safeguards.
Tuesday, 6 October 2026, 18:30–19:30.
University of Zurich, HAH-E-03, Häldeliweg 2, 8044 Zürich.
Free admission. Please reserve a free RSVP ticket so we know how many people to expect.
Organised by Psychedelic Research Organization Zurich (PROZ).
https://www.psychedelicresearchzurich.ch/
